EPTI will reference to Sauwelios LinkSauwelios link: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/lawrencekrauss.html in this text
As I will tell you later, I'm writing a thesis about science and how it is thought of especially in milieus like Chalmers (Tech. Univ.) and what kind of challenges the field of theory of science poses to people and the practice in such an enviroment. I will post the thesis in the forum when it's finished, if everything goes by the plans.
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Do I have any authority in this topic?
I'm doing my MSc in engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, in Applied Physics, as well as a Masters in Theory of Science at Gothenburg University (writing my thesis). So I have some insight in both worlds.
What is Theory of Science? (Note: this is from how the field is interpreted in Gothenburg, at the institution. The interpretation differs for example from how the field is seen at Uppsala University)
Basically, this field is about studying science and scientists. Classical Theory of Science (up until the ~70's) is more the philosophical questions like:
-What makes science so good?
-What differentiates science from other fields, like the humanities.
-What is good science, what is bad science?
-The role of science in society?
The modern Theory of Science has drifted more towards the fields of sociology of science, sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), science and technology studies (STS). To give an example it, it is about how scientists work together, how do they reach a consensus, how to know when to discard a theory or an experiment.
Forewords
Carbonyl noted some criticism: That science can't answer a lot of questions.
There is more criticism than what is brought up. As others stated, this isn't really criticism, it is more of a limitation to the scientific inquiry.
Introduction
The theory of science poses some challenges to the scientific institution, if we are allowed to call it that. These challenges question some features of this institution. I will only give a brief example of some issues, since the full text will be available later.
Scientific Method
Does there exist a "scientific method"?
No it doesn't. A method would constitute a finite number of steps that if they are followed, it will end up in new knowledge. There are different methods that have been proposed throught the times:
Induction, deduction, falsification and others.
Steven Shapin comments this in The One Culture?(2001):
You name it, it's been identified as the Scientific Method or at least as the method of some practice anointed as the Queen of the Sciences, the most autuhentically scientific of sciences - usually, but not invariably, some particular version of modern phyhsics.
(p. 104)He later quotes physicist Percy Bridgeman:
It seems to me that there is a great deal of ballyhoo about scientific method. I venture to think that the people who talk most about it are the people who do least about it. Scientific method is what working scientists do, not what other people or even they themselves may say about it. No working scientist, when he plans an experiment in the laboratory, asks himself whether he is being properly scientific, nor is he interested in whatever method he may be using as method.... The working scientist is always too much concerned with getting down to brass tacks to be willing to spend his time on generalities....Scientific method is something talked about by people standing on the outside and wondering how the scientist manages to do it.
(1955,81)To quote an anecdote myself:
Me and my collegue did an interview with a (mathematical) physicist (string theory research), who told us about an incident when a student came to his office and asked: "What is the scientific method?". The professor, being somewhat familiar with theory of science, said that there was no scientific method. The student was paralyzed out of shock (at least he was surprised), he was actually expecting to receive an answer with x number of steps to follow, which if you follow them, you are being "scientific" in some sense.
For reading purposes, Feyerabend's Against Method (1975) is an excellent book in this topic. He pretty much covers the topic, that there is no scientific method and that science has progressed by people "breaking" the rules. The makes use of some examples where scientists had to break the rules, and these irrational actions led to many of the largest scientific discoveries today. I highly recommend reading Feyerabend (who was originally trained in physics).
I'm sure there are some internet lectures on youtube adressing these kind of questions.
Whig History
The term was initially coined by Butterfield, a british historian, with his 1931 paper The Whig Interpretation of History. The paper is fairly interesting and can be found without difficulty by googling. The term refers to the political Whig party, which wrote the history in such a manner that it appeared as history somehow unfold so that the Whigs came up on top, they were chosen.
In wikipedia on Whig History we read:
The term is also used extensively in the history of science for historiography that focuses on the successful chain of theories and experiments that lead to present-day science, while ignoring failed theories and dead ends
Pretty much: Newton and all other (great) scientists were all right always, and they would draw exactly the same conclusions if only they knew what we knew. This is a simplified version. It's a belief that for example: we believe what Newton believed, he was right, we are right, it's just minor differences. We neglect the aether, the corpuscles and other phenomena that Newton believed in and take the good parts, and call him ours.
Another type of Whig History is when scientists construct history in such a manner that some experiments seem very important, or some results seem very decisive to give some kind of drama effect.
For example, afterconstructions of history. Today we learn in physics classes the importance of the Michelson-Morley experiments but in fact its significance is just an after construction by Einstein and others.
In the other blog, there is a link posted by user Sauwon in which the writer asks why scientists have so high regard of themselves and their enterprise.
Which raises the question: why? My best guess is that the culture so celebrates physics, that physicists have come to believe the "PR" about them.
This could be classified as Whig History.
If you read Thomas Kuhn's best seller The Structure of Scientific Revolution (1962) you will notice that Kuhn argues that scientists should be mislead into thinking that they possess some kind of special knowledge and so on so that science can progress, because Kuhn thinks that what makes science different from the humanities and stuff is the fact that within the humanities people always argue about the basics. If science were to be such that scientists always were questioning their field then it wouldn't progress. That's why he says:
In the case of textbooks, at least, there are even good reasons why in these matters, they should be systematically misleading
Kuhn's book is one of the most popular books on science. But! There is another way of seeing it. Karl Popper (Feyerabend was his biggest fanboy, at least if we were to believe Steve Fuller in his book Popper vs. Kuhn(2004)) had this idea of responsibility. Everyone should be responsible for their actions, and that includes the scientist. Therefore we should not be misleading the community to favor scientific progress. Every person should before making a decision need to know about the matter, they sohuld know what the consequences should be if they take a certain position and on that basis they should make their decision. The decision shouldn't be made by someone else. Therefore we can not choose to mislead someone so that they become better scientists, it's just not moral.
Fuller argues therefore that the wrong person won (there was a debate between Popper and Kuhn and Kuhn won, which is why he is so famous). Kuhn's vision of science is nowaday seen as THE vision, people usually discard other opinions. Read the Wikipedia of Fullers Popper vs. Kuhn and you'll get a glance of what I'm saying (the critique is unjustified in my opinion), Fullers book is interesting and presents an interesting view of Popper.
To read about the Michelson-Morley experiment, and other interesting things about science I would consult Trevor Pinch's and Harry Collin's The Golem: What you should know about science.
Social Factors
There are social factors playing in science. It can be the peer review process in which certain people are discriminated (there is one case where a scientist had his paper delayed for x number of years (I think 7) to get it published because he was a part of a small community so the reviewer who held a grudge against this guy could easily be recognized so he never wanted to allow him to publish his paper.
Other factors can be: sexual discrimination (feminists like to mention this), that scientists have been performing boundary work to exclude women from the scientific inquiry.
In Sauwelios link we read:
Of course, it was not always so with physicists, but the current generation (at least those who try to speak to the broader public) does seem remarkably inept in logical and rational thought, and unembarrassed to display that to the world.
Brought my thoughts to a quote by Feyerabend in Against Method:
The withdrawal of philosophy into a "professional" shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth – and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending.
Other issues might deal with theory choice moments, when scientists can not lean on any facts because the two theories both have their "facts" backing them up, so there must be some other kind of stuff that must be used as a criteria between them.
Scientists discriminating each other because of personal issues(as seen above) or because they might have some other opinion, just look at Dan Schechtman, Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry, he was totally kicked out of his community because he didn't agree with the facts of the day.
The thesis of underdetermination (aka Duhem-Quine thesis): all theories are underdetermined by facts. A set of facts can support an infinite amount of contradicting theories, how do we know when we got it right?
This is a very brief introduction into the challenges that the scientific enterprise stands before
Hopefully it was beneficial.
