Okasha (2002) states that philosophy of science is the application of philosophical thought to the character of scientific investigations and the knowledge that results from these investigations. The concerns of this branch of philosophy are said to include: the goals of science, how it operates, its relationship to society, the difference between science and other activities, whether scientific methods justify the conclusions that are based upon it, the attributes of a scientific investigation, the connection of theory to science, and the efficacy and validity of its general concepts and assumptions.
The primary concern of this study is the philosophy of science as it relates to the scientific method, particularly to scientific methods used in the criminology and criminal justice system. For example, a substantial area of the criminology research concerns domestic violence (Siegel, 2002). The question can be asked: What insights do philosophy of science provide concerning the general methods used in criminological research and in the investigation of domestic violence and abuse in particular? The purpose of this paper is to provide an answer to this question.
A good deal of the domestic violence and abuse literature has examined for relationships between abusive behavior and several key sociodemograpics. For example, Weinsheimer, Schermer, Malcoe, Balduf and Bloomfield (2005) examined for associations between alcohol and intimate partner violence (IPV) in a sample of 95 female trauma patients admitted to Level 1 Trauma Center using researcher-designed survey questionnaires The survey included questionnaires about both present and past levels of IPV. Multivariate analysis of data was said to indicate that: (1) almost half (46.3%) of women had a history of IPV; (2) About 59.1 percent of women who screened positive for alcohol problems had a history of IPV, while only 12.7 of those screening negative for alcohol problems had...