I’ve taught a course in graduate research methods at Eastern Illinois University for about ten years now. We meet once a week for about three hours, and we spend the first couple of weeks discussing the concept of epistemology, which is the process of how we know things. One point I emphasize is that the role of a social scientist is not to prove anything to be true. The sentence, “My analysis proves A causes B” is a complete anathema in my classroom. We always need to maintain a healthy dose of humility; no matter how strong our evidence, how sound our theory, and how appropriate our methods, we can’t really ‘know’ anything for certain in this field.
However, one finding has become clear and compelling that needs more publicizing: people who attend religious services more frequently are less likely to struggle with their mental health. A quick search through
