Science philosohpy 2 Flashcards
Science is the most powerful tool humans have developed
Importance of science philosophy
Scrutinizing the validity of science
What was science before 1700s
Scienc ebefore 1700s was “natural philosophy”
“All the science is either physics or stamp collecting”
Reductionist statement by Ernest Rutherford
Origin of mathematics
Born in Egypt and the Babylonians applied it to astronomy
The father of science
Thales of Miletus; 7th century B.C.; non-supernatural explanaitions of natural phenomena like thunder and earthquakes
Four important figures in Pre-Socratic science
1) Anaximander (600BC): suggested that life originated from water and mud and humans originated from lower life forms”
2) Pythagoras (500 BC): Important contributions to mathematics. was burned alive
3) Empedicles (400 BC): discovered air pressure using a straw
4) Democritus (450 BC): suggested matter was made of small atoms
Scientific advancement during the dark ages
Carried on by the Islamic cultures (e.g., medicine, astronomy, chemistry)
Scholasticism
Attempt to reconcile Greek thought with biblical dogma; in Europe, 12th C
Renaissance
Period from 1400 to 1700 in which sciene and art thrived; Bolstered by a rebirth of Greek humanism
Thomas Aquinas
1200 CE; Proposed natural theology (knowing God by studying his creation); Very important in the development of new thought; Ultimately led to people turing away form religion
Francis Bacon
Proposed the scientific method (i.e., observation and experimentation)
Scientific revolution (historic period)
A shift back to human reason instead of faith during 16th and 17th century
Nicholas Copernicus
Heliocentric view of the universe, which replaced the Ptolemaic geocentric view
Johannes Kepler
German astronomer who developed the laws of planetary motion in the 1600’s, improving Coernicus’ model.
- Planetary orbits are elliptical
- Sun is not at center of orbits, but at a focal point
- Speed of planets not constant, but area speeed is
Galileo Galilei
Italian astronomer (1600’s) who defended the Copernican model in addition to contributing to physics regarding velocity, gravity, and inertia.
Improved the telescope
Instrumentalism
“Science is just a tool at doesn’t describe reality”; This view partly existed to get by with religion
Isaac Newton
English Astronomer (1700’s) who established classical mechanics, built the first reflecting telescope, and discovered prismatic colour refraction.
Newton’s law of universal gravitation: Every particle attracts every other particle in the universe as a function of mass/distance.
Wrote “Mathematical principles of natural philosophy”
His works marks the age of enlightentment
Antoine Lavoisier
Determined fire is oxigen
Darwin
Inspired by Linnaeus; proposed evolution (originally proposed by his grandgather) but most importantly provided natural selection as a mechanism and lots of data to back his theory
Mendel
His work on genetics helped confirm Darwinism
Science
The systematic building and organization of knowledge
Semmelweiss
1865; “doctors who wash their hands give less infections when delivering babies”
Louis Pasteur
1881; Germ theory
The four most important figures championing the use of reason in philosophy
1) Parmenides
2) Plato
3) Galileo Galilei
4) Rene Descartes
The four most important figures championing the use of experience in philosophy
1) Heraclitus
2) Aristotle
3) Francis Bacon
“If I have seen far, it’s because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”
quote by Isaac Newton; highlights the social structure of science
Empiricism
The idea that all knowledge comes from sense experience; Challenging rationalism;
Three big figures: Bishop George Berkley, David Hume, John Locke (the father of empiricism)
John Locke
Father of empiricism; Actively challenged metaphysical views and “innate ideas”
Epistemology
the philosophical study knowledge
The Tabula Rasa
“blak slate” The idea that we are born with an empty mind; Proposed by Locke
External world skepticism
The problem born from Empiricism concerned with that because all we experience is sensations, we don’t know anything about the real world
Logical positivism
Philosophy of science that dominated the early 20th C, after WWI
Analytic and Synthetic propositions
Concepts developed by logical positivism;
Analytic propositions: Statements that are logically true
Synthetic propositions: Statements that are true because they describe the way something works in reality
The verifiability theory of meaning
Anything that cannot be verified is meaningless;
Debunks external work skepticism
Problem with positivism’s verificability theory of meaning
How can one verify the verificability theory of meaning?
Quine
Wrote “two dogmas of empiricism”; Claimed that ideas precede testing anything
Realism
Contender view for empiricism and positivism; things exist regardless of our observations
Induction
forming general theories from specific observations; its conclusions are likely
Deduction
forming specific conclusions from general premises; its conclusions are true
The problem of induction
Proposed by Hume (one of the main empiricists); Points out that we can never see a law, only things that obey a law. “The future is under no obligation to mimic the past”
Example: Russel’s chicken.
A chicken gets fed by a farmer day after day. Is that a law of nature?
Hypothetico-deductive method
A scientific hypotesis is confirmed when its logical consequences turn out to be true
The ravens paradox
“All ravens are black”; Someone finds a yellow bird and it’s a chickadee. This indirectly counts as evidence for the first statement to some degree.
Generalisations need to take theory into account in order to make sense;
This theory needs to work holistically
Goodman’s new riddle of induction
Data can support diffferent, sometimes, mutually exclusive theories
Grue - blue + green;
The strength of an argument depends on the language used to state the argument;
The same principle applies for being able to fit more than one model to one dataset
Popper on induction
Popper (Austrian-British philosopher) claims science is not actually based on induction, but deduction.
He championed deduction and disregarded the value of induction.
Popper on trial and error
Popper says we see patterns because we expect patterns;
In later observations the pattern can be refuted nonetheless, which is the nature of science
Popper on hypotheses and observation
Popper says hypotheses come before observation, a “protohypothesis”
example:
Say to someone “observe” without saying what to observe
Hume and Popper’s notes on dogmatism
Our protensity to look for regularities breeds dogmatic thinking; This needs to be abandoned and a critical thinking attitude must be adopted;
Dogmatic thinking will find a way to confirm a theory;
It’s important to be open to challenging one one’s theories
Popper on what makes a theory scientific vs pseudoscientific
To be scientific, a theory has to be incompatible with certain possible results of observation (i.e., testable and falsifiable)
Note that despite Popper being right, falsifiability is not enough to consider a theory scientific.
The problem with Popper’s view that science is purely deductive
Some scientific ideas are not falsifiable in a deductive way (e.g., evolution)
A theory that has been tested 100 times and not falsified is just as unfalsidied as a theory that has never been tested, but the former is at least likely.
Is science inductive or deductive?
It’s mostly inductive. Its results are most often likely instead of absolute
Is science inductive or deductive?
Most of the time it’s inductive; This is because scientific results are likey and never absolute.
Paradigms and “normal science”
Kuhn made this distinction. Most science is problem-solving and uneventful, happening in a set of presuppositions and assumptions. This framework is called a paradigm.
Kuhn on anomalies
Kuhn said that anomalies are not counter-examples to a theory.
Anomalies exist everyhere and are of a statistical nature.
On rare occassions, the anomalies won’t have a good explanaition. As anomalies accumulate, they can lead to a paradigm shift.
Scientific revolution (concept and example)
Term coined by Kuhn, which refers to the scientific proces that results from accumulation of anomalies that can’t be explained, leading to a paradigm shift;
The Michelson-Morely experiment was an anomaly in the paradimg of light being trasnported by ether. It was never explained until Eintein’s theory of relativity. The whole process involved normal science, anomalies, crisis science and finaly led to a paradigm shift.
Crisis science example
The Michelson-Morely experiment was an anomaly in the paradimg of light being trasnported by ether. It was never explained until Eintein’s theory of relativity. The whole process involved normal science, anomalies,
Kuhn on the pattern of scientific knowledge accumulation
Contrary to the notion of scientific knowledge accumulating in a linear way, it is full of paradigm shifts; This was pointed out by Kuhn
Main difference between Popper and Kuhn’s views on science
Popper criticized working inside a paradigmatic framework, while Kuhn championed it.
Kuhn argued that in order to do science, working within a paradigm based on cooperation and consensus is necessary (although one has to be open to change) to achieve progress.
I don’t need to spend time trying to disproof that beetles are insects.
Kuhn on pardigm incommensurability
He said different paradigms are incommensurable (apples and oranges) and no data can decide between paradigms because data itself if collected under a paradigm (ladeness of observation)
The theory of ladenness of observation
Before making an observation we have a prior theoretical framework of what we’re testing, thus, that framework is part of the observation; More simply put: observations themselves are affected by a particular theoretical framework.
I think of Boyd’s photo of wasps that had different sizes:
I said it could be different species (maybe hyperparasitoids); Kyle said maybe they were ants and they were drones and workers
Kuhn’s 5 ways
Kuhn proposed 5 values for measuring the quality of a theory
1) accuracy (predictions matching observations)
2) consistency (within itself and other theories)
3) scope (applies for future data)
4) simplicity
5) fruitfulness (warrant future research)
Note these values are not easily measured in reality, and their weighing may not be straightforward
The problem with pedagogy
The merits of defeated theory are not acknowledged
Kuhn on the scientific method
Kuhn said that there is not one single scientific method, and that’s a good thing because it allows for creativity
Lakatos
Hungarian philosopher that championed the readoption of reason in science
“Research programs”
Coencept proposed by Lakatos; research programs are similar to Kuhn’s paradigms, but they can coexist within a discipline instead of being mutually-exclusive;
research programs consist of a hard core (i.e., essential aspects) and a protective belt (i.e., branching concepts);
The core is fixed, but the protective belt is flexible
Lakatos on science/pseudoscience demarcation
In a good, progressive, research program, anomalies should increase its predictive power in an “updated version”.
A degenerating research science weakens with anomalies.
Main difference between Lakatos and Popper
Lakatos acknowledged that theories have anomalies
Strong inference
A concept developed by John Platt (1964) to describe an accumulative method of inductive inference. According to Platt it consists of 4 steps:
1) Developing alternative hypotheses
2) Devising an experiment with alternative possible outcomes
3) Carrying out a clean experiment
4) Repeat, making sequential hypotheses
Platt describes it as climing a tree from branch to branch (i.e., “inductive tree”)
According to plat, this is the main reason why molecular biology advances so fast
Polanyi’s republic of science
republic of science (i.e., a community of independent tinkers cooperating) is analogous to a master-trainer system that maintains scientific standard in the criteria of:
plausibility, scientific value, originality
Theory
a systematic statement of principles involved in a system
Hypothesis
a proposed, unproved theory potentially explaining a system
Model
a generalized representation of a system; a more specific version of a hypothesis
