Tag Archives: ethics

Reading: Science and Values

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Jürgen Mittelstrass. Public lecture in Tartu 7th Sept 2010. Published in Akadeemia.

2. Three types of science:

– scientific method (possible to repeat and control, clarity of expression, reasoning)

– institutional (universities)

– science as and idea or lifestyle (references to Greek philosophers)

3. Science as a product. Three types of research:

– basic and theoretical research
– basic but with a possibility to became commercial
– purely commercial purpose

4. Democratic science

Science is both democratic and not.

5. Ethics. Three types of problems.

– Products of science misused – e.g. nuclear bomb
– Ethical problems during the research process (medical experiments)
– Lies and frod

The triangle of problems has following corners – problems and principles of development, of research, and of the ethos.

6. Science and values used to be the same. Not any more.

Reading: The path to the normal science

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Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, chapter 2

‘Normal science’ is research that is based on one or more scientific achievements of past that is recognized as a base for future research. Nowadays these achievements are described in many science textbooks. These books present the central principles of these accepted theories and illustrate them. Before this kind of books emerged in the beginning of 19th century, books from science classics were often used (Aristoteles, Newton, Franklin, Lavoisier, Lyell).

Achievements that are innovative enough and yet do not answer all the relevant questions are called ‘paradigms’. This term is closely related to ‘normal science’. Paradigms offer models which form the basis for traditions: Newtons’ dynamics, Copernicus’s astronomy etc. People who work within same paradigms share same regulations and standards.

Different scientific subjects have different history of paradigms: electricity, light, genetics. Some fields developed their first generally accepted paradigm later than others.

Gathering evidence before a paradigm is established can be somewhat random because all collected facts seem equally important. Not theories but technology has (often) lead this process because many facts would be undiscovered without practical work – doctors, calendar makers, iron workers.

If paradigm shifts then some scientists will change their views but some will find themselves in isolation. Paradigms guide specialization – authors often start from where the theory books finish.

Reading: Theory and Observation

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Rudolf Carnap.

Laws of science express the regularities of the world as precisely as possible. Not all laws are universal i.e. they do not apply under whatever circumstances. All such laws are based on singular statements. The Q is how are we able to go from such singular statements to assertion universal laws.

The value of laws: explanation and prediction

Induction and statistical probability

Theories and nonobservables

Correspondence rules.

 

Reading: Optimist, Pessimist and Pragmatist Views of Scientific Knowledge

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Karl Popper Optimist, Pessimist and Pragmatist Views on Scientific Knowledge (1963), After Open Society, pp 3-10.

“Theory of knowledge = epistemology” That’s the heart of philosophy.

Pessimists (agnostics) deny the possibility of justification. The others (optimists) believe. Kant referred to Newton and said that the sceptics must have been mistaken if they deny the obvious success of science. Alas, sceptics’ arguments have always been more solid.

Then there is the third group – pragmatists – who use the theories as practical instruments. Popper: We can see pragmatism as a form of scepticism because the pragmatist agrees with the sceptic on the impossibility of pure knowledge.

Einsteins’ theory was a better approximation to the truth than Newtons’s but he never claimed it to be “the truth”.

Popper’s position:

1. Both parties agree that the central problem is justification. This formulation is mistaken. No theory can be the truth but can explain the world better than other theories.

2. The problem of justification is not the same as the problem of knowledge.

3. We cannot say that a certain theory may not be refuted in future.

4. All criticism of a theory is an attempt to refute it.

5. Science is constantly subject to rational critical discussion.

6. Tests are part of this rational critical discussion.

7. The discussion consists of attempts to evaluate the relative merits of competing theories: which has the greater explanatory power.

– The optimists believed that the methods of science were about collecting evidence and generalizing (induction).

– The sceptics said that generalization is invalid: can never say by observation that all swans are white (Hume). But Hume admitted that although repetition (induction) is invalid, it seemed to work better than any rational procedure.