The natrue and logic of science

Question 1

What is science: Tinbergen’s Four Questions

Answer 1

What is the history of science?
how does science develop?
what is the funciton of science?
how does science perform its function?

Question 2

Ptolemy

Answer 2

Geocentric world view
epicycles

Question 3

Nicolaus Copernicus

Answer 3

Helio centric
explains and predicts the same as Ptolomey but more right

Question 4

Galileo Galilei

Answer 4

Proponent of Copernicanism

Observational astronomy

All bodies accelerate at the same rate (But friction affects different bodies differently.)

Experimentation as key source of

scientific knowledge.

Question 4

Johannes Kepler

Answer 4

Attempted to form general laws of planetary motion, such as:
“all planets move in ellipses, with the Sun at one focus”

Question 5

Isaac Newton

Answer 5

Developed Calculus

Could derive both Galileo’s and Kepler’s

Laws of motion from his general laws of motion.

Unified terrestrial and heavenly motion

Question 6

Albert Einstein

Answer 6

Space and time part of a unified

spacetime. Gravity is a deformation in spacetime.

Newtonian laws special cases in which:
Speeds are not too fast
Gravitational pull not too strong

Question 7

Karl popper: Hypo-Deductivism (Falsificationism)

Answer 7

Science operates through deduction:
Hypotheses are generated, observable consequences are deduced, then falsification is attempted.

Modus Tollens
If P,Then Q
Not Q
therefore, Not P

Question 8

Hypo-Decutivism: Three step method

Answer 8

1) Conjecture: the scientist comes up with a ‘risky prediction’ based on his/her theory (hypothesis)
2) The scientist attempts to falsify the prediction, to observe an instance that does not confirm the prediction
3) Deduction: the theory (or hypothesis) must be false

Problem: Science does not seem to operate via the simple hypothetic-deductive system.

Question 9

Imre Lakatos: Sophisticated Falsificationism

Answer 9

Falsification of a particular statement in a theory does not mean we should reject the theory

The focus should be research programs, not isolated theoratical claims

Research programs can be progressive or degenerative

progressive research programs lead to dsicover of hiteherto unknown facts

Question 10

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Answer 10

Games lack an essence.

But ‘game’ doesn’t have non-overlapping meanings like ‘bark’.

Instead, games bear a family resemblance to one another.

Games have overlapping properties, not
essential properties.

perhaps the same is true for science