Social Influences on Education, Research, and Healthcare

The concepts of belief and knowledge, and their implications for research are controversial. Beliefs become knowledge when supported by evidence, and evidence has different levels of credibility. This section will briefly define the terms objectivism and relativism; describe the levels of credibility of evidence; and the current, desirable, and undesirable social influences on knowledge. I shall argue that research is guided by the choice of hypotheses to be confirmed; that this choice depends on the researcher’s belief that the hypothesis is correct; and that society’s culture determines this belief.