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Summary Week 1-7 + articles, Philosophy of Science
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Complete summary of all lectures 1-7 and articles of Philosophy of Science
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Summary Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science
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Philosophy of Science and Ethics : Summary of books (Okasha, Blackburn, DeGrazia, Miller and Attfield), Utrecht University
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WEEK 1: Introduction + DemarcationOsaka: Ch. 1, what is science?
The philosopher of science is not concerned with answering scientific questions. He answers
questions about science.
From 1500 on there was a scientific revolution. The dominant worldview was
Aristotelianism, that hold the following ideas:
- The earth is located at the center of the universe
- Five elements: earth, air, fire, water, ether; with specific motions
Copernicus found out that the sun is at the center of the kosmos. This led to the scientific
revolution in the 17th century and modern physics became the standard.
Differences:
- In modern physics they started using mathematics to explain the physical world.
Before that they only used it to explain abstract objects.
- More emphasis on testing hypotheses experimentally.
- Institutionalization of science
Physics is the most fundamental scientific discipline, as everything is made out of physics,
namely atoms.
The job of philosophy of science is to question assumptions that scientists take for granted.
Images of Science (a general conception of what science is about)
1. Science is a reliable form of accumulating knowledge.
Advocates: Bacon, early Royal Society
Goal: observe, generalize, control nature
2. Science proceeds with conjectures not merely observation
Advocate: Karl Popper
These conjectures (hypothesis) are never beyond criticism
3. Science aims at a unified complete account of nature
There are objective logical relations
Some findings are objectively well established
4. Science is a human activity and human factors matter.
Science is shaped by human interaction
Scientific choices are affected by researcher’s context (including politics)
Karl Popper’s “Conjectures and Refutations” (=empiricism)
Popper wants to distinguish science from pseudoscience (= demarcation problem).
Pseudoscience usually claims to be a science, but is does not follow the scientific standards
that are present in society. Therefore, he came up with the demarcation criterion. If this
criterion is not met the theory is pseudo-science.
,Proper is not interested in:
When is a theory true?
When is a theory acceptable?
Why? Because you can test theories that might be false, but you are still doing science then.
Popper looks at four purportedly scientific theories:
1. Einstein’s theory of relativity
2. Freud’s psycho analysis
3. Marx’s historical materialism
4. Alder’s individual psychology
Theory 1 is different as it is falsifiable. 2-4 explain too much, it can explain everything that is
happening. There is no way to say it is false. For Popper science should try to disprove a
theory and not only try to support the hypotheses. According to Popper, science can only
progress when a theory is proven wrong, and a new theory is thought of.
Popper’s demarcation criterion:
“The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or
testability”.
Popper is a critic of inductivism and wants deductivism (falsification) as a scientific standard.
Inductive method starts with the observation and the deductive method starts with theory:
If theory T is true, then we should observe O
We do not observe O
So, theory T is false
But there a few problems with his criterium:
- Not all the hypotheses need to be very radical
- Not all the hypotheses which are probably true are falsifiable
- Whenever you test a hypothesis, you test them in bundles. With views and
background beliefs. This entails that you don’t know where the problem lies (your
hypothesis or your background beliefs) if your experiment fails. However, you can
revise the background conditions to save the theory, so it is not necessary to actually
revise the hypothesis.
, Week 2: Demarcation
Theory of science
Naïve description of science works: scientists test their hypotheses against observations of
experimental results and base their conclusions on evidence.
- Context of discovery: generation of an idea or a Eureka! Moment
- Context of justification: the defense of an idea
Discovery is not a systematic process.
Science is in the context of justification: science makes general claims, but the evidence is
always finite as it is based on samples. And this leaves space for errors.
Feynman: Cargo Cult Science
The idea of cargo cult science: after the 2nd world war Melanesians believed that if they
imitated the planes that then they would receive cargo (food) again.
it performs rituals that imitate science but are not science. Real science sometimes delivers
cargo (fame and promotion for scientists). So, then a scientist thinks about how to make
that happen? And he looks at how the scientists that got promoted do it and do the same.
But this isn’t true science, it is missing scientific integrity. To steer clear of becoming a Cargo
Cult Scientist, scientists should show integrity regarding the result of their research.
Thereby, they should not focus on maintaining their position in the organization or financial
support.
What is genuine science according to Feynman:
- Genuine science gives complete reports
- Genuine science avoids confirmation bias: do not fool yourself, e.g., repeating
experiments
- Genuine science does not lie/mislead people
Merton: The Normative Structure
In this article Merton is concerned with the cultural structure of science, focus on science as
an institution; he looks at institutional norms that establish ethos of science. He states that
the goal of science is the extension of certified knowledge and this brings him to four
institutional imperatives that comprise the ethos of modern science: universalism,
communism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism.
Merton looks at science as an institution, he does not look at the methods etc.
Universalism:
Truth claims must be objective. The claims are subjected to impersonal criteria: they come
from previously confirmed knowledge. Race or gender of the scientist must be irrelevant.
Communism:
Non-ownership of scientific achievements. Scientific goods are owned by the community
not by the individuals. Property is limited to recognition of the work by others. This
imperative is also house to the idea that scientists should acknowledge their cultural
background
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