Nature - autonomous learning

192 the dis/unity of geographycan follow these steps – regardless of gender, colour, class etc. So what arethese steps?ACTIVITY 4.2Following on from the previous Activity, imagine that you wish to identifythe cause/s of landslides in an area of the world where landslides havebeen little researched. What, in your view, would be the principal steps youwould take in order to undertake the analysis?Your answer will, hopefully, have included some or all of the following.Thestarting point is an environmental phenomena as yet unexplained. AsBird (1989: 2) noted,‘scientific method starts with some kind of problem:we might go as far as to say that problem orientation is the raison d’être ofscientific inquiry’.This problem-focus typically takes the form of posinga ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ question which needs to be answered – in this case whylandslides occur(red). 7 Second, some initial, preliminary observations ofthe landslides in question will produce some ideas that might explain whythey occurred.These ideas do not, of course, emerge purely from observation.Rather, preliminary observations are already structured by the factthat the researcher knows the research literature on landslides. S/he is thusalready familiar with the principal explanations of landslides based onstudies undertaken elsewhere in the world.They are likely to draw uponthis knowledge when speculating about what caused the landslides underinvestigation.As a result, the researcher will specify a possible explanationin the form of a model or theory (and, in many parts of physical geography,a law). In basic terms, a model is a simplified representation of reality thataims to depict the key causal variables or interrelationships at work (or the‘signals in the noise’).A theory is usually a more sophisticated and detailedattempt to offer a rational explanation of reality and comprises a set ofconsistent, logical statements that would account for the existence of thephenomena under investigation. A law, meanwhile, describes a consistentrelationship (deterministic or probabilistic) between two or more variablesthat is more or less universal in nature. 8 Equipped with a model, theory orlaw, the researcher might then derive some empirically testable hypotheses. 9