... any) is the hierarchy of knowledge(s) from the various communities (policy, research and practice). 1. Introduction Evidence-based-policy has been accepted into the social policy arena with great enthusiasm, raising questions about the policy-making-process and public administration1. It is inexorably linked to the modernizing agenda: evidence over ideology is the new mantra, providing an opportunity for social sciences to ... value-laden decision-making. As pointed out by Tilley and Laycocke, "rooting policy in evidence has all the appeal of motherhood and apple pie. The rhetoric is che...

• Word Count: 2455
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of inductive evidence can prove a universal statement but a single piece of counter-evidence can falsify it. He argued that since it is always easy to find confirmations and hind-sight explanations that will serve to save a theory, therefore a scientific theory should not be identified as one that ... is compatible with Darwinian explanation. This is like a tautology "all chairs are chairs", which is not testable; nor has any explanatory power. Following this logic, based on Popper's Principle of Falsification, Darwin's Theory of Evolution is not scientific because it was a tautology, a...

• Word Count: 2361
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... this conception of truth and suggests how reason, not authority (i.e. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Aquinas, ect.), should be the spearhead of a sound methodology, further breaking with medieval conceptions of logic. This break ultimately culminated in the production of a new way to combat the skepticism of the moral and religious crises of the early modern period, and led the populous to ... Though Descartes and other proponents of the scientific revolution rejected Aquinas" coldly intellectual method, they drew on the general premise of Aquinas" goal of applying intellect to deeply meaningful q...

• Word Count: 2887
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate