Introduction Flashcards
When was the formation of our Earth
4.6 Billion Years ago
What is the Vitruvian Man
Is Leonardo da Vinci’s own reflection on human proportion and architecture, made clear through worlds and images
The purpose of the illustration is to bring together ideas about art, architecture, human anatomy and symmetry in one image
What does deep history denote
How does it affect the scinece and study around it
Deep history means far back in time
Because it’s so long ago you can’t do manipulative experiments
What is something which is suggested to set science apart from other diciplines
Many philosophers have argued that this sets scinece apart from other attempts to explain, understand and predict the world
However the question of ‘what is science?’ remains heavily unanswered
Which group particularly tried to define a concept for science
The Vienna Circle
Their view most closely approximated the tradition conception of positivists philosophy
Which other division, similar to positivism, was also set up
Verificationism
Was fundamental level about lanuage
They grouped sentances into two categories (1) mathematical and logical propositions (2) factual or logically possible propositions
It is mainly a theory about the meaningfulness of factual sentaces
Which individual critised the Vienna Circule
In the 1930s, Sir Karl Popper pointed out to the Vienna Circle that scientific theories cannot be conclusively verified by experiment
‘Probability of truth of scientific theories is always zero’
Who led the Vienna Circle
Moritz Schlick
High view represented what was known as ‘right-wing’ positivism
What was a heavily contested theme of logical positivism
Phenomenalistic reductionsim
The view that all meaningful discourse must be capable of being translated into language that describes sensory experiences - David Hume
What was Popper main dispute against phenomenalistic reductionism
There is always room for doubt: you have to to do the experiment/observation an infitie number of times and get the same outcome for it to be unequivocally true => there is alway froom for doubt
It only takes one contrary observation to disprove a theory and hence virification tells us nothing
George Box refuted Popper
Why?
One fatal weakness if Popper’s idea that falsified theories should be rejected
Science needs to advance - no good just saying all theories are wrong ‘all models are wrong, but some are useful’
What was William Whewell’s ‘Consilience of Induction’
Whewell set out a scheme for what makes a theory likely to be true
Consilience of induction = brining together lines of evidence to get a probable truth
Bringing together different ideas in a theory which makes the most sense, as it cannot be tested
E.g. used in geology as many fossil records are very incomplete - ‘the great detective science’
