Week of November 12 - November 18: #3

One concept that I found interesting in the Boss text was empiricism. (I found this under the "Assumptions Underlying Science" section on page 369.) This is exactly the belief I used to judge my coworker (mentioned in my last post). Empiricism, as defined in the text, is "the belief that our physical senses are the primary source of knowledge." As much as we all don't want to think that we do this, it is one of the most basic assumptions of science. I think that we just automatically do this because it's an instinct we have to protect ourselves. For example, we may see someone sketchy walking down the street. It is possible that they could be very friendly, but we wouldn't want to risk the fact that they could harm us so we would probably avoid them the best we can. Another example is the opposite; if we see someone nice and friendly, we probably would approach them and say hello.