Chapter 9 - What is science?

Question 1

On which four principles were science’s claims of “superiority” based?

Answer 1

1. Realism (independent physical world)
2. Objectivity (physical reality is independent of of the observer)
3. Truth (scientific statements are true when they correspond to physical reality)
4. Rationality (Truth is guaranteed because scientific statements are based on sound method)

Question 2

What is the correspondence theory of truth and who first formulated it?

Answer 2

Aristotle; A statement is true when it corresponds with reality (also: realism)

Question 3

What is scepticism and who first formulated it?

Answer 3

Pyrrho; There is a physical reality, but humans can never have a reliable knowledge of it

Question 4

What were the basics of Augustine’s view and how long did it last throughout time?

Answer 4

True knowledge was knowledge based on God’s revelations; this view lasted to well into the 17th century

Question 5

What could generally be considered the dominating view before the scientific revolution vs. after (very brief)?

Answer 5

Mostly that of rationalism at its core; deductive reasoning. With/after the scientific revolution inductive reasoning took more of a centre stage

Question 6

Who is generally credited as (one of the) first to highlight the importance of observation and experimentation? How so?

Answer 6

Galilei; he tested many of his theories through experimentation and observation (e.g., that of the velocity of a ball- would it be constant or accelerating)

Question 7

How does Gower question the person accredited as the one that first proposed observation/experimentation?

Answer 7

1. He was still steeped in Aristotelian tradition (Galilei derived a law from Euclidian geometry and demonstrated them afterwards)
2. Galilei referred more often to thought experiments than real ones

Question 8

Why did Galilei rely on thought experiments more than real ones?

Answer 8

1. It resonated better with his readers (reminder that he wrote his works to reach the common folk)- as it relied on unknown equipment, as such, thought experiments relating to the average were more useful
2. He himself did not think of experimentation and observation as decisive; true knowledge was knowledge resonating with human understanding (demonstrated knowledge)

Question 9

What did Bacon introduce/promote?

Answer 9

Inductive reasoning and systematic observation

Question 10

What were some of Bacon’s warnings/proposals (3) about research?

Answer 10

1. Research should start off with the collection of a large number of facts (natural history), without theoretical prejudice and to put them into tables for undersanding
2. Conclusions derived from said tables should be taken with care (aka no jumping to them)
3. Data collection should be done for both positive (essence and presence) and negative evidence (deviation or absence in proximity) + also “degrees of comparision”, where the phenomenon is present in varying degrees)

Question 11

How should research look, to Bacon, to come to true and scientific information about the world?

Answer 11

Large scale, exploratory collection of facts, followed by careful tabulation and by inductive reasoning based on the positive, negative and degree instances

Question 12

How can Newton’s scientific method be summarized?

Answer 12

Using deductive reasoning from basic principles, which were established by induction

Question 13

Who was one of the first scientists to explicitely defend the use of inductive reasoning

Answer 13

Huygens

Question 14

What were the two main important points put forward by Huygens?

Answer 14

1. It is possible to verify principles from their effects with a degree of probability (not certainty), when a great number of (observed) phenomena in line with the principle are collected
2. Truth was guaranteed when the principles allowed new predictions and verification

= scientific probabilistic reasoning

Question 15

As this probabilistic reasoning rose, so did a problem. What was this and what solutions were posed?

Answer 15

1. Inverse probability problem = determining the probability of a theory based on a series of observation
2. Bayes’ theorem/Laplace’s equation (the latter being that the probability of a statement increases with successive observations)

Question 16

What do calculations of the inverse probability depend on and how did Taleb illustrate how this may not be so?

Answer 16

1. That the world stays the same
2. That of a Turkey predicting it’s future on the basis of current experience, but it is a week before Thanksgiving

Question 17

For what did appreciation grow, because of the more centre stage inductive reasoning took?

Answer 17

Hypotheses

Question 18

What was Herschel’s view on hypotheses/scientific method (3)?

Answer 18

1. Inductive reasoning as the start > became more abstract, albeit he did not denote it as deductive
2. As scientific theories are in part speculative, different views for the same phenomenon can arrive
3. This was a good thing, as a choice could be made by careful postulation of hypotheses and matching the best one

Question 19

What was a final insight before the twentieth century about the scientific method?

Answer 19

That the distinction between observation and idea was not as clear as previously stated

Question 20

What was Whewell’s “antithesis of philosophy”? What was his opinion about it?

Answer 20

The separation that was previously made (and the centre of debate) between theory and fact. His opinion:
1. That they are inseparable concepts (knowledge necessarily depends on both the senses and the mind); ideas and sensations cannot exist without each other

Comte also agreed with this point

Question 21

As positivist writings during the end of the 19th century dominated, what was mostly “swept under the rug”?

Answer 21

The critiques towards inductive reasoning

Question 22

The scientific method was revisited in the early 20th century, for which three reasons?

Answer 22

1. Science, at this point, had dominated Western culture- the question as to why came to rise
2. The finding that Euclidian geometry was not the only kind of geometry (aka there were more self-evident axioms than thought before)
3. Major advances in knowledge about logical reasoning lead to the idea of being able to find science’s demarcation

Question 23

What is demarcation?

Answer 23

The defining of boundaries of a concept

Question 24

Philosophy of science came to rise in the early twentieth century, what was a movement (school of thought?) that came forth from it?

Answer 24

Logical postivism; philosophy should focus on understanding the scientific approach (e.g., verification principle) and not metaphysics

Question 25

The Vienna circle, focused on this logical positivism, published the 1929 manifesto, what conclusions (4) could be derived from it?

Answer 25

1. Truth has two sub-types; empirical truths and logical truths
2. Empirical truths make claims about the world and are established through empirical verification (observation and experimentation) - most important
3. Logical truths are based on deductive logic and are influenced by linguistic conventions (deduction does not generate new knowledge)
4. Statements not belonging to one of the categories above are meaningless

Question 26

To logical positivists, what was the “demarcation” or distinction between science (or scientific statements) and not?

Answer 26

That of verification; a proposition is only meaningful if it can be verified as true or false (objective and value-free observation)

Question 27

What were critiques/problems with the verification criterion of logical positivism (5)?

Answer 27

1. Verification is logically impossible; I.e., the truth of a statement could not be proved through observation (just its probability of being so). See: “all swans are white”
2. Scientific theories are full of non-observable variables; e.g., mass cannot be directly perceived by the human senses (albeit it can be measured through an operationalization)
3. The definition of observable; Operationalizations are fun, but not every variable is easily translated as such, so when do we consider something observable and when not (note: it is an arbitrary distinction)
4. Non-observables may become observable; technological advancements
5. Verifiable observations do not guarantee correct understanding; An observation, that can be easily verified, is not necessarily fact, as such things as error and perceptual deceive exist

Question 28

As logical positivism failed, a new contender entered the compitition, which was?

Answer 28

Falsification; Popper

Question 29

Logical positivists claimed that science was special because it observed facts, why is this not necessarily true?

Answer 29

Because observations are theory-laden (Comte, Whewell)

Question 30

Why is observation theory-laden (3)?

Answer 30

1. Perception requires interpretation
2. A theory changes the perception of facts
3. Theory allows focus on important facts

Question 31

As Popper introduced falsification, why did he see this as the distinguisher between science and non-science?

Answer 31

Science constantly questions its own explanations, whilst this is rarely done in non-scientific settings (or psychoanalysis, as Popper proposed)

Question 32

Falsificationism?

Answer 32

Statements are only scientific if they can be falsified; aka are specific enough in their prediction to make possible the finding of opposing evidence

Question 33

What method did Popper propose on the basis of his notion of falsification? What is an example of this model in use?

Answer 33

The hypothetico-deductive model (that of both induction and deduction, in a cycle)
- Pasteur induced that things such as wine turn sour due to the introduction of environmental organisms > Hypothesis = a filter that blocks organisms from entering the liquid > Finding such a filter would falsify the dominating theory at the time and provide evidence in favour for his hypothesis (the latter is not actually true) > this turned out true (not for milk, which required boiling in addition)

Question 34

How did Popper distinguish “degrees of falsification” and what did it mean for a statement to be more falsifiable?

Answer 34

More falsifiable = higher scientific status. Also the degrees of falsification and the specificity of prediction and its scope (as learned in SSR)

Question 35

What were implications of Popper’s falsification for science?

Answer 35

1. It proceeds by trial and error (theories cannot be proved true, only not falsified, as of the logic of inductive reasoning)
2. Falsification poses a solution for the inherit confirmation bias

Question 36

What are three problems with falsification?

Answer 36

1. A singular instance of falsification does not always mean the theory as a whole was wrong
2. When is a modification allowed and when not? (Popper; when they keep the theory as equally falsifiable, or make them moreso)
3. However in practice it is not uncommon for modifications to occur that do not fit in with Popper’s ideals and/or are not tested/taken up by other researchers

Question 37

What is the general layout of Kuhn’s theory on science?

Answer 37

1. Pre-science; unorganized cumulation of facts, observations and models to explain small-scale phenomena
2. Paradigm; a proposal of a general framework, where scientists share a set of common views about the discipline and its methods
3. Normal science; Falsification testing, modification and extension of paradigm (there is an expectation of adherence to the paradigm)
4. Crisis and revolution; accumulation of falsified findings that can no longer be subverted > a state of crisis as progress stalls > revolution as conjenctures that allow progress need to be introduced

The cycle (perhaps minus pre-science) repeats

Question 38

Introduced by Lakatos, what are degenerative research programmes and what are progressive research programmes?

Answer 38

DGP = Paradigm that does not allow novel predictions and require an increasing amount of ad hoc modifications to account for empirical findings
PRP = That does allow novel predictions and does not require the ad hoc modifications

Question 39

What does Kuhn mean with a scientific revolution?

Answer 39

A time where the previous paradigm is replaced with one that fits the newly found data; a time of much discovery and novelty

Question 40

What does the cycle proposed by Kuhn implicate for paradigms?

Answer 40

That paradigms are replaced by others, not necessarily better or worse- this takes away from a “science progresses towards more and more complete knowledge” and instead sees scientific knowledge as time-dependent and relative

Question 41

Peirce proposed pragmatism, which is?

Answer 41

Human knowledge is information about how to cope with the world; the truth of knowledge depends on the success one has in engaging with the world (aka the practical implications of knowledge)

Question 42

What are Peirce’s four ways of acquiring knowledge?

Answer 42

1. Scientific method
2. The method of tenacity (basically, customs and traditions)
3. The method of authority (adopting knowledge from experts, like religion or science- without checking)
4. A priori method (own logic and reason for conclusions)