Summary and Review of: What is this thing called Science? By A.F.Chalmers (1982).

2nd Chapter 5-8)

CHAPTER FIVE SOPHISTICATED FALSIFICATIONISM, NOVEL PREDICTIONS AND GROWTH OF SCIENCE

1. Relative Rather Than Absolute Degrees of Falsifiability A hypothesis should be falsifiable. The more falsifiable the better and yet should not be falsified. More sophisticated falsificationists realised that those conditions alone are insufficient and therefore there is the need to progress. A hypothesis should be more falsifiable than the one for which it is offered as a replacement.

A sophisticated falisificationist switches the focus of attention from merits of a single theory to the relative merits of competing theories. This method gives a dynamic picture of science than the static account of the naive falsificationists. Instead of asking a theory is it falsifiable how falsifiable is it and has it been falsified? It becomes more appropriate to ask is this newly proposed theory a viable replacement for the one it challenges. In general, a newly proposed theory will be acceptable as worthy of the consideration of being scientific if it is more falsifiable than its rival and especially if it predicts a new kind of phenomenon not touched on by its rival.

The emphasis is on the comparison of degrees of falsifiability of series of theories. Ideally, the falsificatonist would like to be able to say that the series of theories that constitute the historical evolution of science is made up of falsifiable theories, each one in the series being more falsifiable than its predecessor

2. Increasing Falsifiabilty and Ad Hoc Modifications The demand that as science progresses, its theories should become more and more falsifiable and consequently have more and more content and be more and more informative, rules out modifications in theories that are designed merely to protect a theory from a threatening falsification. A modification theory such as the addition of an extra postulate,that has testable

consequences that were not already testable consequences of the unmodified theory will be call ad hoc modifications

3. Confirmations in the Falsificationist Account of Science It is a mistake to regard the falsification of bold, highly falsifiable conjectures as the occasions of significant advance in science. This is clear because there are theories that take the form of bold risky conjectures and others that are conjectures, among making claims that seem to be involved no significant rules.

If either of them fails an observational or experimental test, it will be falsified. If it passes such a test, it will be confirmed. Significant advances will be marked by the confirmation of cautious conjectures. This will contribute to scientific knowledge because they make the discovery of something that was previously unheard of or considered unlikely. The falsification of cautious conjectures is informative because it establishes that what was regarded as unproblematically true is in fact false. On the other hand little is learnt from the falsification of a bold conjecture or the confirmation of a cautious conjecture. If a bold conjecture is falsified, then all that is learnt is that yet another crazy idea has been proved wrong.

The falsificationist wishes to reject ad hoc hypotheses and to encourage the proposal of bold hypotheses as potential improvements on falsified theories. Those bold hypotheses will lead to novel, testable predictions which do not follow from the original falsified theory.

4. Boldness, Novelty and Background Knowledge This section explains bold and novelty. These terms are historically relative notions. Thus, what rates as bold conjecture at one stage in the history of science need no longer be bold at some later stage. Predictions are judged novel if they involve some phenomenon that does not figure in or is perhaps explicitly ruled out by the background knowledge of the time.

5. Comparison of the Inductivist and Falsificationist view of Comfirmation Confirmation has an important role to play in science but this does not invalidate the labelling of falsificationism. The aim of science is to falsify theories and to replace them by better theories,

demonstrate a greater ability to withstand tests. Confirmation of new theory is important so far as they constitute evidence that a new theory is an improvement on the theory it replaces. Once a newly proposed bold theory has succeeded in ousting its rival, then it in turn becomes a new target at which stringent test would be directed, test devised with the aid of further boldly conjectured theories

Falsificationists account of growth of science is significantly different from that of inductivists. Inductivist position is determined solely by the logical relationship between the observation statements that are confirmed and the theory that they support. By contrast, in the falsificationist account, the significance of the confirmations depends very much on their historical context. A confirmation will confer some high degree of merit on a theory if that confirmation resulted from the testing of a novel prediction.

CHAPTER SIX THE LIMITATIONS OF FALSIFICATIONISM 1. TheoryDependence of Observation and the Fallibility of Falsifications There is agreement by the inductivists and sophisticated falsificationists that there is an important qualitative difference in the status of confirmations and falsifications. Theories can conclusively falsified in the light of suitable evidence but they can never be established as true or even probably true whatever the evidence. Theory acceptance is always tentative but theory rejection can be decisive.

These claims of the falsificationist are seriously undermined by the fact that observation statements are theory dependent and fallible. This can be seen by recall to logical point invoked by falsificationists. If true observation statements are given, then it is possible to logically deduce from them the falsity of some universal statements, whereas it is not possible to deduce from the truth of any statements.

2. Poppers Inadequate Defence

Popper distinguishes between public observation statements and private perceptual observation experiences. The latter is individuals act of observing which is not straightforward because this is influenced by individual experiences which influences what he observe

3. The Complexity of Realistic Test Situations A realistic scientific theory will consist of a complex of universal statements rather than a single statement. A theory cannot be conclusively falsified, because the possibility that some part of the complex test situation, other than the theory under test, is responsible for an erroneous prediction cannot be ruled out.

4. Falsificationism Inadequate on Historical Grounds An embarrassing historical fact for falsificationists is that if their methodology had been strictly adhered by scientists then those theories generally regarded as being among the best examples of scientific theories would never have been developed because they would have been rejected in their infancy

5. The Copernician Revolution In this section Chalmers claim that the inductivist and the falsificationist fail to take into account the complexity of major scientific theories and therefore their account of science are too a piecemeal. Neither the inductivist emphasis on the inductive derivation of theories from observation, nor the falsificationist, is capable of yielding an adequate characterisation of the genesis and growth of realistically complex theories

CHAPTER SEVEN THEORIES OF STRUCTURES: RESEARCH PROGRAMMES

1. Theories should be considered as Structural Wholes Theories should be seen as structural wholes. One reason stems from the history of science. Thus, history reveals that evolution and progress of science exhibit a structure that is not captured by the inductivist or falsificationist. Secondly, more general philosophical argument is

closely linked with the theory dependence of observation. Observation statements must be formulated in the language of some and must be precise and informative

There is a connection between precision of meaning of a term or statement in theory. There are limitations of some alternative ways in which a concept might be thought to acquire their meaning. One is the view that concepts acquire their meaning by way of definition. This must be rejected as a fundamental procedure for establishing meaning because concepts are defined in terms of other concepts, the meanings of which are given. If the meanings of the latter concepts are themselves established by definitions, it is clear that an infinite regress will result unless the meanings of some terms are known by some other meanings of many words.

The second alternative is the suggestion that the meaning of concepts is established through observation by way of ostensive definition. A central difficulty with this is that one wll not arrive at the concept through observation. Thirdly, the need for science to grow. Science will advance more efficiently if theories are structured as to contain within them fairly clear clues and prescriptions as to how they should be developed and extended 2. Lakatos Research Programmes This section summarises Lakatos Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. This is an attempt to improve on and overcome the objections to Popperian falsificationism. It provides guidance for future research in both positive and negative way. The negative involves the situation that the basic assumptions underlying the programme, its hard core must not be rejected or modified. It is protected from falsification by protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses, initial conditions, etc. The positive heuristic is comprised of rough guidelines indicating how the research programmes might be developed. This supplement the hard core with additional assumptions.

The hard core of a programme is the defining characteristics of a programme. It takes the form of some very general theoretical hypotheses that form the basis from which the programme is to develop. Example: the hard core of Copernician astronomy would be the assumptions that the earth and the planets orbit a stationary sun and that the earth spins on its axis once a day. Also

the core of Newtonian physics is comprised of Newtons law of motion plus his law of gravitational attraction. The hard core of a programme is rendered unfalsifiable by the methodological decision of its protagonists. Any inadequacy in the match between an articulated research programme and observational data is to be attributed, not to assumptions that constitute the hard core, but to some other part of the theoretical structure.

The negative heuristic programme is the demand that during the development of the programme the hard core is to remain unmodified and intact. Any scientist who modifies the hard core has opted out of the Copernician research programme. Lakatos emphasis on conventional elements attached to a programme has much in common with Poppers position with respect to observation statements. The major difference is that whereas in Popper the decisions concern the acceptance of singular statements only, in Lakatos the device is extended so as to be applicable to the universal statements that make up the hard core.

The positive heuristic is that aspect of a research programme that indicates to scientists the kind of thing they should do rather than what they should not do. They indicate how the core is to be supplemented in order for it to be capable of explaining and predicting real phenomena. According Lakatos the positive heuristic consists of a partial articulated set of suggestions or hints on how to change, develop, the refutable variants of the research programme, how to modify, sophisticate, the refutable protective belt.

3. Methodology within a Research Programme Lakatos states that scientific methodology must be discussed form two points of views: the first is within a single research program. This involved the expansion and modification of its protective belt by the independently testable addition and articulation of various hypotheses. Modification or additions to the protective belt of a research program must be independently testable. Any move is permissible as long as it is not ad hoc. The second is comparison of the merits of completing research program. This involves challenging some assumption in the protective belt. It will be legitimate if it offers the possibility of new kinds of experimental tests, perhaps leading to the discovery of some unexpected phenomena.

Scientists involving in the program will protect the theoretical core from denial attempts behind a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses. The negative heuristic prevent the modification of the hard core, while the positive heuristic focuses on a possibility for adjusting and developing the protective belt to accommodate the hard core principles of the program. Lakatos methodology ruled out two kinds of move including the hypotheses that are not independently testable and the violation of the hard core. Therefore, Lakatoss Views about Scientific Method include; additions and modifications to the protective belt must not be ad hoci.e., they must be independently testable; no changes in the hard core are permitted; and there are no rules for choosing which additions or modifications to the protective belt to make. Ingenuity is encouraged.

4. The Comparison of Research Programmes In comparing the merits of one research program with another competing research program, the latter must be judged by the extent to which they progress or degenerate. A degenerating program will fall off the competition and should not be used to compare. But what is the criteria in assessing whether a competing program is degenerating? A program can never be said to have entirely degenerated because it is always possible that at some point in time, some ingenious modification to its supporting assumptions may lead to a stunning discovery and restore its progressive qualities. In the overall sense, there are no particular criterion in rejection of a particular research program for comparison it would be an unqualified claim to say that one research program is more superior than a rival. According to Lakatos, the research program must be based on the hard core of a science. So, how can people realize the hard core of a science?

CHAPTER EIGHT THEORIES OF STRUCTURES: KUHNS PARADIGMS

1. Introductory remarks Kuhn (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, states that scientific progress is revolutionary rather than steady and cumulative, and scientific change cannot be explained

entirely as a rational process; sociology and psychology are needed to explain scientific change. According to Kuhn, general pattern of scientific change can be shown as: pre-science normal science crisis revolution new normal science new crisis ... Pre-science was disorganized and unstructured activity characterized by constant debate over fundamentals (e.g., commerce before Adam smith). Normal science is dictated by a single paradigm which is uncritically accepted by the majority of scientific community. Crisis occurs when anomalies become sufficiently numerous and serious to call the current paradigm into question. Revolution occurs when a crisis is resolved by the scientific communitys abandoning one paradigm and adopting another paradigm.

2. Paradigms and Normal Science According to Kuhn scientists practice normal science. He believes that empirical evidence builds what are called paradigms: accepted models or patterns by scientists. Kuhn has been applauded and also blamed for producing a crisis of rationality in the 1960s by questioning the understanding of character of science and the trust we place in it. Kuhn has been the central figure in critique of science in the 1970s. He undermined the empiricists claim that science portrays the evidence that builds knowledge in the world around us and that knowledge is developed fully from an account of this experience or accumulation of facts.

Kuhn believed that knowledge does not progress but changes. He questioned the idea of cumulative knowledge. And asserted that paradigms were formed over a period of a generation wherein, after the new paradigm followed. That will also follow the same pattern to bring about new one in future. Each paradigm is or depicts a different world and mature science is defined by paradigms. A paradigm is governed by a set of rules and techniques agreed upon by scientific community. This clearly defines science from non-science. Among the characteristics are: 1. Laws and theoretical assumptions 2. Standard ways of applying above to a variety of situations 3. Techniques for use and for correcting collected data 4. General metaphysical principles for guidance 5. Methodological prescriptions

6. Open-endedness

Kuhn observes anomalies instead of falsifications of paradigms. Rejects falsificationism because of these anomalies existence. That is disagreement over fundamentals that identify developed and underdeveloped science or paradigm and not the anomalies within it. He defined this stage as the pre-science stage.

3. Crisis and Revolution Anomalies do exist in a paradigm but it is the persistence of anomalies against the principles of a paradigm that can threaten and constitute a crisis. The conditions for crisis occurring are; i) Failure by scientific community to solve the problem (anomaly) ii) If they relate to a pressing social need iii) Length of time it takes to address and remove it iv) Number of anomalies

A revolution occurs when a paradigm is weakened and the proponents lose confidence in it. A scientist is normally faced with a variety of factors which leads him to make rational choices of the best option available, in Kuhn case the option is to change or convert completely to a new paradigm. The factors involve are i) Simplicity ii) Connection to pressing social need iii) Ability to solve specific problem. Why Rationality no longer hold according to Kuhn as the best option 1. Various factors involved in scientist judgment in the merits of the current theory 2. New paradigm will overthrow the old with new principles etc.