Progress in science
- 2. Smooth progress time progress
- 3. progress realistic irrealistic naive critical pragmatism relativism truths cumulate classical empiricism and rationalism theories approach truth Peirce Lenin scientific realism practical success competing theories are incommesurable scientific anarchism Rescher Kuhn Laudan Feyerbend
- 4. Progress in science • Is scientific knowledge progressive? • Has scientific knowledge always grown? In this respect, how do the natural sciences compare with other Areas of Knowledge, for example, history, the human sciences, ethics and the arts? • Could there ever be an ‘end’ to science? In other words, could we reach a point where everything important in a scientific sense is known? • If so, what might be the consequences of this?
- 5. Thomas Kuhn (1922 – 1996): Scientific revolutions The progress in science happens through revolutions.
- 6. The structure of scientific revolutions • Thomas Kuhn is most famous for his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) in which he presented the idea that science does not evolve gradually toward truth, but instead undergoes periodic revolutions which he calls "paradigm shifts."
- 7. Some terminology • Normal science • Scientific crisis • Scientific revolution • Paradigm • Anomaly • Auxiliary hypothesis
- 8. Normal science • during periods of what Kuhn calls normal science the vast majority of scientists work within the dominant paradigm without seriously questioning it. • Most scientists are bricklayers patiently filling in the details and extending the body of scientific knowledge.
- 9. Forcing nature into the conceptual boxes • A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. – These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". – The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs exert a "deep hold" on the student's mind. • Normal science "is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like" —scientists take great pains to defend that assumption. • To this end, "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments". • Research is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education".
- 10. Scientific crisis • During periods of scientific crisis there are likely to be violent arguments between those who adhere to the old paradigm and those who advocate the new one.
- 11. Scientific revolution • A scientific revolution takes place when scientists become dissatisfied with the prevailing paradigm, and put forward a completely new way of looking at things.
- 12. The shift from the geocentric to the heliocentric model of the universe in the sixteenth century.
- 13. Replacement of Aristotelian physics by Newtonian mechanics in the seventeeth century.
- 14. The replacement of the Newtonian mechanics by Einstein’s theory of relativity in the early twentieth century.
- 15. Scientific revolutions revolution time progress normal science normal science revolution
- 16. Summary of Kuhn’s position 1. During periods of normal science, most scientists do not question the paradigm in which they are operating and focus instead on solving problems. 2. The history of science suggests that, rather than progressing smoothly, science goes through a series of revolutionary jumps. 3. During periods of scientific crisis, there is no purely rational way of deciding between rival paradigms.
- 17. Assessing Kuhn’s position • Is a normal scientist, as Kuhn describes him, a badly thought or simple minded scientist? Shouldn’t scientists always be critical? This is what Karl Popper claims.
- 18. Will everything we believe eventually be falsified? • It is sometimes taken to imply that all of our current scientific beliefs will one day be swept away in a new revolution. • It is difficult to imagine future scientists rejecting our belief that the earth goes round the sun. • They may, however, discover that such beliefs are approximations to richer and more inclusive theories the details of which we cannot at present imagine.
- 19. “A new scientific truth does not win by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Max Planck “In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual” Galileo Galilei.
- 20. Everything goes Methodological anarchism “the worst enemy of science”
- 21. Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924 –1994) • Austrian-born philosopher of science. • Major works: – Against Method (1975) – Science in a Free Society (1978) – Farewell to Reason (1987). • Famous for his anarchistic view of science and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules. • He is an influential figure in the philosophy of science, and also in the sociology of scientific knowledge.
- 22. Epistemological anarchism - There are no useful and exception-free methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge • the idea that science can or should operate according to universal and fixed rules is unrealistic, pernicious and detrimental to science itself. • anarchism reflects methodological pluralism • scientific method does not have a monopoly on truth or useful results • dadaistic "anything goes“ attitude
- 23. Science is an ideology • Feyerabend holds that science is an ideology alongside others such as religion, magic and mythology. • The dominance of science in society authoritarian and unjustified.