Lecture 1: Philosophy of Science

Question 1

1) What is the typical definition of science?

2) Why is this incorrect?

Answer 1

1) the attempt to understand, explain and predict the world

2) - some religions claim to understand and explain the world
- historians try to understand and explain, while occasionally predicting
- astrologers and fortune tellers predict

Question 2

What differs science from other professions?

Answer 2

• more successful?
• uses theories?
• experiments?
• observations?

Question 3

Why is science being successful not a good differential?

Answer 3

• science simply is not always successful (people retract their papers often)
• astrologers are sometimes right
• historians are more often right

Question 4

Why does the use of theories not set science apart?

Answer 4

• marxists and freudian psychoanalysis also used theories claiming to understand and explain

Question 5

Does the differential come from the scientific method (use of observation and experimentation)?

Answer 5

• many scientists cannot use experiments (cosmologists, palaeontologists etc.)
• other professions use experiments (alchemists, astrologers)
• other professions use observation (art/literary critics)

Question 6

Who is Ludwig Wittgenstein and what did he theorise?

Answer 6

• an philosopher
• some words we use are indefinable
• game is one and science may be another
• these words define concepts by ‘family resemblance’ rather than definite and unambiguous criteria

Question 7

What is demarcation?

Answer 7

how to distinguish between science and non-science

Question 8

What is the Vienna circle?

Answer 8

• a school of thought that began in Austria in the early 20th century

Question 9

What did the Vienna Circle believe in?

Answer 9

• logical positivism
• defending science against religion and government
• impressed by advances in many areas of science (particularly physics work of Newton and Einstein)

Question 10

What is logical positivism?

Answer 10

• coming from ‘positif’ meaning ‘imposed on the mind by experience’
• statements can be: logically true or false, mathematical or tautologies (true by virtue)
• statements about the world are factual or logically possible and must be verifiable by observation

Question 11

What is verificationism?

Answer 11

• a theory about the meaningfulness of factual sentences
• sentences are factual and meaningful only if they can be verified by empirical observation,
• can be confirmed using senses of sight, touch, smell, sound, taste, augmented if necessary with instruments (e.g. microscopes).

Question 12

What is the criticism of logical positivism called?

Answer 12

logiposiphobia

Question 13

Who is a key critic of logical positivism?

Answer 13

(sir) Karl Popper

Question 14

What did Karl Popper theorise?

Answer 14

• scientific theories cannot be conclusively verified by experience
• the probability of truth of scientific theories is always zero
• number of cases examined is finite but the number of unexamined cases in infinite
• one contrary observation is enough to destroy a theory

Question 15

Who did Popper take influence from?

Answer 15

David Hume

Question 16

What did Hume theorise?

Answer 16

the problem of induction: we cannot rationally infer from our experience to cases of which we have no experience and we cannot know everything

Question 17

What did Popper criticise in his theory?

Answer 17

• Newton laws of gravity
• must consider all possibilities
• there is 1-n possibilities, meaning it is infinite
• the probability of Newtons arrangement is 0 (1÷∞ = 0)

Question 18

What was the flaw to Poppers Theory?

Answer 18

• he suggested falsified theories should be rejected
• ‘all models are wrong but some are useful’ George Box
• eg. Newtons laws of gravity were falsified by Mercury’s behaviour, BUT if his theory had been completely disregarded, Einstein could not have built on and created the theory of relativity

Question 19

How did Popper aid scientific advancement?

Answer 19

• forcing scientists to acknowledge things can be falsified
• a warning to prevent complacency

Question 20

What were the criticisms of Popper’s work?

Answer 20

• science doesn’t work in his way
• Okasha defending inductive reasoning

Question 21

Define Induction

Answer 21

making (broad) generalisations from specific observations

Question 22

Define Deduction

Answer 22

starting with generalisations (hypotheses), deducing consequences/predictions and then testing these against observations

Question 23

What makes deep historical science problematic?
(eg. were dinosaurs warm-blooded)

Answer 23

• cannot perform experiments
• cannot make direct measurements
• cannot make live observations
• THEREFORE, theories are neither falsifiable nor verifiable

Question 24

What did William Whewell theorise?

Answer 24

• consilience of induction
• if a theory explains and unites previously unconnected facts or fields (especially if unexpectedly)
• van infer that we are at least onto something

Question 25

Who is the main example of Consilience of Induction?

Answer 25

- Darwin and the theory of evolution - 'nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution' Dobzhansky