Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,817 Year: 3,074/9,624 Month: 919/1,588 Week: 102/223 Day: 0/13 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Philosophy and science
Bikerman
Member (Idle past 4956 days)
Posts: 276
From: Frodsham, Chester
Joined: 07-30-2010


Message 1 of 2 (575424)
08-19-2010 11:29 PM


(Continuation of existing discussion that developed in another thread)
OK first I absolutely accept that many scientists are far from enamoured with philosophy. In fact at first I thought you might be one of the science forums regulars because this debate is very reminiscent of many similar ones we have had.
quote:
Why do you think that's a problem with empiricism and not with logic? Maybe it's the notion of axiomatic derivation that has the fundamental flaw, not the notion of empiric gathering of knowledge.
It certainly isn't a problem with empiricism, simply a suggested change of focus. Better to try to gather the one piece of data that disproves the hypothesis than gather a million supporting examples...therefore design the tests to falsify the hypothesis not simply to confirm it (choose boundary cases or make bold predictions at the limit of the hypothesis).
quote:
Much valid science predates Popper. We even continue to use Mendel's genetics from over 100 years from before "The Logic of Scientific Discovery." Bayes has done far more to prevent fundamental errors in the practice of science than anything Popper has done.
I agree that much valid science predates Popper but there has been an paradigm shift because of his work.
Falsifiability is now generally understood as a key element in scientific demarcation and scientific method. The notion that an hypothesis should be testable and potentially falsified to be considered scientific is pretty universal now. Also the notion that the power of an hypothesis is a function of how easy it is to refute flows directly from this. Until Popper science was infested with pseudo-science like Freudianism simply because there was no agreed way of saying what was and was not science. There were vague notions of empiricism, but no clear line in the sand. Popper provides that and in doing so frees science from many of parasites that used to cling to its coat-tails with impugnity.
quote:
Every scientist I've ever met has heard of Bayes; I can think of only one who had heard of Karl Popper before I brought it up. (Largely their response to my description of his philosophy is something akin to "...and what's the punchline?")
That surprises me. I would have thought that most undergrad science courses would have had at least a module on scientific method and demarcation/philosophy. I suspect that the 'what is the punchline' comment means 'it is obvious' - but it wasn't. Yes, it should be obvious to anyone studying science now because it has been absorbed so that it is no longer even notable. Go back to pre 1930 and there is no clear scientific demarcation, and a scientific method which Aristotle would have recognised and which was unclear and over-reliant on inductive method. Popper et al clarify, simplify and set the basis for modern scientific method, peer-review and demarcation. You don't need telling that one reading/observation can refute a hypothesis and require it to be modified or ditched. Scientists of the 18th and 19th century DID need telling so because they generally did not look to falsify but to confirm. That is a much weaker method and leaves too much chaff surviving. Attack the theory head on, and determined to falsify it (just as most juries on the professional journals do) and you quickly cut through the bull.
quote:
If there's a way to resolve these questions, they'll be resolved by scientists doing science, not philosophers doing philosophy. In the meantime philosophers will borrow the language of biology and physics to produce stuff indistinguishable from Sokal's classic hoax.
No, scientists will do what they get grants to do. Meanwhile their grant awarding bodies will be influenced by philosophy, economics and a range of other considerations. Yes, I agree that philosophy can be a refuge for pedants, sophists and those with nothing to say but an overwhelming urge to say it. I don't think it is either fair or accurate to characterise the whole discipline, or even the majority, in that way.
quote:
And yet I can't find any philosophers in any science labs. I can't find Kant next to the lab manuals in any science course. My wife's new Nanodrop spectrophotometer didn't come with a manual on the philosophical implications of Beer's law. I can't find a single scientist who turns to Popper when he has a question about experimental design.
Again I am surprised. Do the designers not seek to push the boundaries and go for cases where the hypothesis should be stretched, rather than the safe middle ground? Actually I know they do because I speak regularly to physicists, biologists and chemists in the science forums. If they don't then they are not designing their experiments as well as they could or should.
quote:
But I can find legions of philosophers like Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini who evince less than a freshman understanding of the science of evolution, yet pen a ridiculous strawman attack against it:
Yes but come on - I can find large numbers of computer 'scientists' and engineers who are avid creationists (I don't know what it is about computer science or engineering, but it is certainly the case). It means nothing. We don't damn engineering because a proportion of engineers have loony-tunes views, nor should we do so for philosophy.

There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary, and those who don\'t.
Chris

Adminnemooseus
Administrator
Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 2 of 2 (575463)
08-20-2010 4:51 AM


Thread Copied to Is It Science? Forum
Thread copied to the Philosophy and science thread in the Is It Science? forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024