Quiz 2, The Method of Science and Karl Popper's Conjectures and Refutations

Question 1

What is the focus of the method of science? How is it applied?

Answer 1

The focus is on the application towards reality. Nobody can deny reality. Therefore, I believe this because it is close to reality [what might be called the truth].

Question 2

What are the fundamental hypothesis of the method of Science

Answer 2

There are real things [whose characteristics are independent of how we might feel about them]. - real things are real and unchangable

There is one right answer

Question 3

How would you describe the stability of the method? Why?

Answer 3

This method is inherently stable because there is no doubt built into its practice.

Investigation cannot prove Real things, but it cannot point to a contrary either

For tenacity, you become vulnerable once you meet and speak to someone with a different belief

Question 4

What causes doubt within the methof of science? What concession is made when using the method of science to fix a belief?

Answer 4

Disatisfaction between two repugnant propositions causes doubt.

The concession made using this method is that one thing that a proposition represents is Real because if there was nothing Real between two propositions, we would not be close to reality, and therefore not using the method of science

Question 5

Why is the method of science able to distinguish between right and wrong ways of fixing belief

Answer 5

Because all the other methods rely on either what the individual or the state thinks. Since it’s based in logic, the method of science makes good and bad reasoning possible because here comes a right and wrong way to reason something.

Question 6

Popper

What is the demarcation problem?

Answer 6

What makes a theory scientific or non-scientific?

Question 7

Popper

What does an empirical inductive method look like? Is there anything wrong with it? Why?

Answer 7

empirical inductive science sees that observation is taken as evidence

the issue with this is that non-scientific things, like astrology, are also observation based, and calling a theory found through this method scientific would be a disservice to science

Question 8

Popper

How were people like Freud and Marx’s ideas ‘padded’

Answer 8

ad hoc auxilary assumptions, which make it so that anything detracting from an argument they made could in turn be disproved

i.e. all humans are selfish. even if I do something out of kindness, I must have some ulterior motive

Question 9

Popper

Why did Popper not like Freud and Marx’s evidence

Answer 9

He found that with both of them, their inherent strength explanatory power, their theories would always be confirmed

He did not think that this was right

Question 10

Popper

Why did Popper enjoy Einstein and Eddington’s experiment? What did it make him think about?

Answer 10

He thought that the risk involved, and the general theme of falsifying Newton had merit to it.

He thought that good theories then were inherently fragile and open to falsifiability

Question 11

Popper

And what did Popper think about confirmations? What made them valid?

Answer 11

Confirmations come easy, and it is only confirmations that come from risky predictions that have merit

Question 12

Popper

What does a good theory do? What is a genuine test of a good theory?

Answer 12

A good theory prohibits certain things from happening, the more the better

A genuine test is an attempt to falsify a theory

Question 13

Popper

When is a theory unscientific?

Answer 13

When it is unfalsibiable/irrefutable

ad hoc auxillary assumptions within a theoy immedietly demote it

Question 14

Popper

Why are Marxism and Freudian theory non-scientific?

Answer 14

Marx; because although earlier followers left room to be falsified, their later followers ‘rescued’ the ideology by making it irrefutable and thus non-scientific

Freud; his ideas are mostly just suggestions about why people act the way they do, can’t really be falsified

Question 15

Popper

When do mythos and metaphysics gain merit scientifically?

Answer 15

When they act as origin points, or are formed into falsifiable theories

Question 16

Popper

What are Hume’s two things about knowledge

Answer 16

Impressions; experiences, split second encounters

Ideas; the recollection of impressions

Without impression, there is no idea
Everything in the mind is simply cut and paste from ideas

Question 17

Popper

What is empirical knowledge according to Hume?

Answer 17

mind must meet matter, you have to experience something to truly know it

Question 18

Popper

What is the problem of induction? What does it have to do with the past and future?

Answer 18

The problem of induction is how do we base universal truths on particular instances, what is the justification for that? This has to do with the past and future because we assume that future events will be similar to past events

Question 19

Popper

Give me an example of the induction problem using stones falling

Answer 19

The problem of generalization with regards to stones falling would be that because we never experiecne the necessity or universality of all falling stones, we cannot relate the experience of all stones to one stone

Question 20

Popper

What do we really mean when we talk about laws of nature if induction is not correct

Answer 20

Laws of nature are more like habits, things that are reasonable or rationally defensible

Question 21

Popper

Because we cannot experience every natural occurance of something, what are we subjected to?

Answer 21

being led astray easily, i.e. the parable of the chicken where it gets fed everytime a woman comes out into the yard (a habit), until it is killed for meat

Question 22

Popper

What did Popper and Hume decide eventually about induction?

Answer 22

That it cannot be rationally justified, and in the end it is a habit, an act of faith

Question 23

Popper

Regarding induction, what three things was Hume wrong about according to Popper?

Answer 23

1. the typical result of repetition – ideas are not the result of repeated outcome
2. the genesis (beginning) of habits – There must always be a point of view of repetitions, expectation (even just after a single observation), anticipation, and assumption
3. the charcater of believing in law – we use trial and error and force our human perceptions of reality onto the natural world

Question 24

Popper

With regard to the factors Popper thought Hume was wrong about with repetition, what are the only courses left to obtain knowledge by?

Answer 24

1. non-inductive procedure (rationalism)
2. apparent knowledge is just belief

Question 25

Popper

Why is the notion that science can start with pure observation absurd? Why is simply telling someone to observe absurd?

Answer 25

To answer both, you cannot observe without a frame of reference. Observation presupposes a frame of reference

We are born with expectations

Question 26

Popper

What correspons closely to Kant’s law of causality? What is it a part of?

Answer 26

A regularity, our mental outfit and a priori validity

Question 27

Popper

What kind of observers are we? What do we seek when we observe?

Answer 27

Passive Observers who impose order on nature i.e. time/space

We seek to observe regularity

Question 28

Popper

Describe dogmatic thinking, what does it originate from

Answer 28

Dogmatic thinking is similar to tenacity, where you stick wholeheartedly to your expectations – to an extent, it is necessary

Stems from simplification

Question 29

Popper

Describe the critical attitude

Answer 29

the critical attitude is a quick adoption of a schema of expectation, but with an attitude more open (in comparison to dogmatic thinking) to modifications or corrections

Question 30

Popper

What is the distinction between dogmatic and critical attitudes

Answer 30

takes us back to the central problem of demarcation, where dogmatic seeks to verify law to the point of neglecting refutations

Question 31

Popper

Describe the scientific attitude

Answer 31

the rediness to test, revise, or reject theory

Question 32

Popper

What role does the critical approach play when making arguments

Answer 32

The critical approach helps to discover what theories imply and look at them deeper, resulting in an ability to criticize

Question 33

Popper

What is the most rational procedure, what method takes this title

Answer 33

trial and error, conjecture and refutation

Question 34

Popper

What was Hume wrong about regarding belief

Answer 34

he was wrong in saying that belief - in terms of critical acceptance of scientific theories - is irrational

Question 35

Popper

What are the three ingredients in the problem of logical induction?

Answer 35

1. it is impossible to justify a universal law from observation/experimentation
2. science presupposes law and uses them all the time
3. the principle of empiricism where only observation/experimentation determine the acceptance or rejection of a scientific statement