I feel that the idea that Science is simply evidence based is mistaken, as it wears many coats. Science, or what we reference as Science, is often simply the authorisation of accepted elite views. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Philosophy is in fact needed to separate wheat from chaff.

I draw the classic distinction between philosophy, that I take to mean unbounded thinking, and existential thinking, that I take to be thinking about existence. The latter requires the elimination of metaphysical thinking that tends to linger in some presentations of the "philosophy of science." I am no philosopher.

I feel that the idea that Science is simply evidence based is mistaken, as it wears many coats. Science, or what we reference as Science, is often simply the authorisation of accepted elite views. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Philosophy is in fact needed to separate wheat from chaff.

Some sciences seem established upon agreed aspects of science-that can be observation, typology-without thinking too hard about the results-

extrapolating evidence from experiments on animals seems bound by poor judgement and wishful thinking.

Critical Realism for ever!

It is important not to confuse science with the social practice of "science."

"Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom. The attempt is sometimes made to find an objective justification of science in technics; but ordinarily the mathematician is concerned with mathematics and the physicist with physics, and not with their applications. And, furthermore, technics itself is not objectively justified; if it sets up as absolute goals the saving of time and work which it enables us to realize and the comfort and luxury which it enables us to have access to, then it appears useless and absurd, for the time that one gains can not be accumulated in a store house; it is contradictory to want to save up existence, which, the fact is, exists only by being spent, and there is a good case for showing that airplanes, machines, the telephone, and the radio do not make men of today happier than those of former times." - de Beauvoir, via Ethics of Ambiguity.

Also, read Foucault. His theory of how scientific discourse dominates culture and serves the powerful by permeating the social and political sphere shows how discourses compete for power by attempting to yield the authority of determining reality, a political power more powerful even than controlling material wealth. Scientific discourse is, maybe, the dominant discourse of our age, but the same phenomenon is present in the genealogies of sexuality and "madness," or the societal standards of mental illness. Foucault has books on these. The podcast "Philosophize This," episodes 121, 122, and 123, all on Foucault, are all available on Youtube and Spotify, and are a good place to start in understanding scientific discourse in a postmodern perspective.

In my opinion, the science except the discovery, the description, the development, the renovation and the other activities, perspectives and methods of the knowledge about the universe, should have also as duty the philosophy of this knowledge; in other words, firstly, to declare the correctness and the accuracy of the achieved knowledge and secondly to answer on the questions how and why the universe has become via this knowledge. It is a necessary, an urgent and an indispensable duty for the science in all the eras. The rich and enriched every time bibliography in both parts, mainly for the second, beginning with Bible - Genesis, Aristotle - the source of motion (988b), Saint Augustine - Theory of seminal reasons etc.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Patterson & readers,

One important role of philosophy, whether practiced by philosophers or by scientists themselves, is simply to communicate what is going on in the sciences to the general educated public. Philosophy does poorly if it attempts to preempt the special sciences and scholarly disciplines or replace their work with philosophical theories. It does better if it allows the secure advances of the sciences and scholarly disciplines to inform philosophical thought. That role also implies the need of distinguishing what is more securely established by the sciences from their continual efforts at pushing back the limits of knowledge in their more speculative theorizing. No easy matter, of course.

However, insofar as the general educated public is unable to comprehend what is going on in the sciences, we will all be left with diminished means of evaluating that work or tracing out its possible social and human consequences. It belongs to the work of philosophy to question and inquire regarding the broad range of human activities and accomplishments--with one foot in the sciences and the other in the humanities. No one quite understands everything, of course, but the efforts in that direction are properly part of the task of philosophy.

H.G. Callaway

My problem with the philosophy of science is that the philosophers ought to first learn some of the science, before pontificating over it. For example, one of the replies people in such threads love to read is that science has its own True Believers, who supposedly don't need verification of anything, just to Believe.

Mostly, that's false. What is true is that you cannot go back to square one, for everything you want to investigate. So sure, some "well-known" scientific facts, you will assume, as opposed to rediscovering and re-deriving every single theorem you will be using. But that hardly means that someone else can't overturn those "facts" on a moment's notice, with incontrovertible (repeatable, verifiable) new discoveries.

And, unlike philosophy, just because some scientist says something, using a vaguely believable argument, does not mean he will be quoted for secula seculorum, as if anything he said matters, only because he said it.

Having introduced my response with a negative, I will concede that some of what one reads is quite intriguing. Today, the idea that it is only human perception of things that matters. Without that human perception, definition, classification, would this phenomenon even exist? So for example, the universe that we see is 13.x billion years old. Guess what? The only reason that might even be true is that human beings perceived certain conditions, and made certain determinations, and articulated that conclusion. If humans did not exist, would any of that be real?

Philosophy is a Valuing Technology, so, if brought in contact with Science, it can generate new Mechanism, Functionalities and Perspectives.

The philosophy is challenging the awareness of individual (and hereby) the Collective Reality generated by Science on one side, and the remoteness of the individual (and hereby ) the Collective Memory generated by Art& Culture on the other side.

So, the philosophy of science becomes a MEAN (technical) to challenge the status-quo of that particular science. But, there is a condition: the general knowledge level of the Tool user/ sender/ receiver.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Patterson & readers,

One way of going at the present question regarding philosophy and science, philosophy of science and related matters, is to look into writings of Peter Woit, mathematician at Columbia University and his book, Not Even Wrong, --which is closely related to his continuing critical writings on contemporary physics.

Here's a passage of interest from a review which appeared in Physics World at the time of the book's publication:

The ultimate judge of any physical theory should be comparison with experiment, and Woit duly underlines string theory’s miserable score on this count: “Not a single experimental prediction has been made, nor are there any prospects for this to change soon.” He adds a pithy remark by Feynman: “String theorists don’t make predictions, they make excuses.” While most string theorists are honest, Woit uncovers cases of dishonesty and outright fraud, such as the episode in 2002 involving the brothers Bogdanov, a string-theory version of the infamous Sokal hoax.

---End quotation

See the review by Gordon Fraser, "String Theory gets Knotted," by following the link:

https://physicsworld.com/a/string-theory-gets-knotted/

My point is not to attempt an evaluation of string theory, but instead to point to contemporary controversy and pronounced scientific doubts on a major direction of scientific research.

I submit that (far!) short of attempting to substitute for the physicists, it belongs to the task of philosophy of science to cast some light upon on-going controversies within the sciences. How has such a situation arisen? What do the practitioners of alternatives to string theory make of Feynman's remark, “String theorists don’t make predictions, they make excuses” ? How is the educated public to understand such controversies in empirical science?

Or, we might ask, more philosophically, what is the relationship between well confirmed, established physics (such as the Standard Model of particle physics) and the various attempts to extend it --pushing at the outer edge of knowledge? At some point, of course, more speculative modes of thought and theory enter in. What are their proper limits? Is there danger of running off into dogma, if speculative extensions are give completely free reign?

H.G. Callaway

Albert Manfredi, that seems like a pretty reductive understanding of what philosophy is: "vaguely believable arguments," taken as fact. If our two options for understanding reality are scientism and the blind acceptance of loose logic, of course, the scientific method is clearly the better option. However, we are not confined to these two choices.

Using Stanley Wilkin's response as a point of reference, I believe that Popper's idea of inter-subjective testability and falsifiability principle is a suitable way of validating the truth of the statements introduced by different scientists.

Thank you, Albert Manfredi for this basic point. A person may "feel" that idea that Science is simply evidence based is mistaken, and they are certainly entitled to their feelings, but science is not defined by feelings. It is defined by the testing of beliefs by data.

The delightful thing about science is that it is that it is not a religion. There is no wrathful god of science to reward or punish you for believing in whatever you chose to believe in. You may or may not believe in science, science doesn't actually care. Because science isn't a thing at all, it's just a way of creating and testing shared knowledge. it is always incomplete, partial, evolving. And it fundamentally acknowledges this. As a scientist, I present each finding together with a confidence interval – a statement of how wrong this result might reasonably be.

The other, rather addictive thing about science is that we don't argue about things, we get data. When common sense told us that people having a stroke would phone the ambulance more quickly if they knew the knew the symptoms of stroke, we tested this idea. And it was wrong. Even people who had a previous stroke, and so knew what if felt like, delayed in calling for help. Instead, we focussed on bystanders, to good effect. So campaigns aimed at getting people with stroke to medical attention faster are based on data, not opinions. And when you get to medical attention, the prognosis is a lot better than it used to be, if you get into an evidence-based stroke unit.

You can go on "feeling" that science is not evidence-based, but if you suffer from a stroke, you may "feel" glad that it is.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Conroy & readers,

Thanks for your comment.

This invites, I think, our consideration of science, ideally and abstractly considered and, what we might call "real existing science," i.e., science as institutionalized and funded --sometimes on a vast scale. Institutionalized science will, of course, cling to the idealized image of scientific understanding, though, in fact, a good deal of institutional infighting and common human passions goes on inside. I think that very few will doubt of the fact.

When Wilkin wrote,

Science, is often simply the authorisation of accepted elite views. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Philosophy is in fact needed to separate wheat from chaff.

---end quotation

It seems clear that he is addressing institutionalized science--not our idealized image of scientific rationality. One might then consider the question of whether it is possible that the institutionalized practice, under the title and banner of science, may not have some tendency to corrupt the practices required of genuine scientific research and understanding.

Stop to imagine, say, the institutional standing that might have been attributed to a "new, improved" version of Ptolemaic astronomy --if such had come to the fore during the inquisition's examination of Galileo's proposals. I think it might have got a generous hearing.

A merely imaginative point, perhaps? The general point is that scientific proposals, however well grounded or speculative are likely to evoke some purely social reactions; and those reactions might sometimes be exploited within the institutional setting of institutionalized science.

I would be wary in particular of highly politicized reactions to scientific themes and theses, say, those concerned with human nature.

H.G. Callaway

---you wrote---

A person may "feel" that idea that Science is simply evidence based is mistaken, and they are certainly entitled to their feelings, but science is not defined by feelings. It is defined by the testing of beliefs by data.

I personally tend to favor instrumental realism and use it to evaluate some of the components of scientific theories. Doing so makes me supportive of some of the points brought by H.G. Callaway in his last post. Though, I cannot completely discard theories merely because of their current immature state or that they cannot be immediately "investigated" through experiment. Some of the additional criteria I use on which to pass judgement is its current or future predictive power, its internal/external coherence and sometimes the lack of better alternatives.

Another point worth noting is when (and if) the theory has to be reduced to experimental and theoretical models which provide support for the theory. Under such models there are always simplifications to make problem solving tractable. Such simplifications will always make the theory imprecise in describing the reality under study and make the theory open for revision and refinement. This make the judgment of the scientific theories very troublesome.

There are two meanings of the term philosophy of science: the first one is about the scientific method ; the second one is some philosophical questions that are answered by scientific discoveries.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Leshchenko & readers,

Your note brought me to do a bit of searching for a definition of "philosophy of science." The short introductory article from the Encyclopedia Britannica reads as follows:

Philosophy of science, the study, from a philosophical perspective, of the elements of scientific inquiry. This article discusses metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical issues related to the practice and goals of modern science. For treatment of philosophical issues raised by the problems and concepts of specific sciences, see biology, philosophy of; and physics, philosophy of.

---End quotation

What comes to mind under the heading of the "elements of scientific inquiry" is, for example, the topic of explanation. Philosophy of science has spilled a great deal of ink in the attempt to say exactly what counts as an adequate explanation. Or, again, there has long been much exploration of the topic of evidence and what is to count as evidence. Likewise, one might look into "theory" --what is a theory, or "model" what is an adequate model? Such things are explored in the journals in great detail.

I wonder how you see the passage from the Britannica as lining up with your own suggestion. I would tend to say that scientific discoveries more plausibly answer particular versions of philosophical questions.

H.G. Callaway

---you wrote---

There are two meanings of the term philosophy of science: the first one is about the scientific method ; the second one is some philosophical questions that are answered by scientific discoveries.

Thank you everyone for contributing to this discussion. All of the answers are interesting - clearly there are many different valid views on this topic. That is a very good thing. I have never thought about some of the perspectives offered here, so I learned some new ways of looking at both philosophy and science.

The way I see it, the “philosophy of science” is the cycle of philosophy guides science where scientific discovery reforms philosophy; and there is no reason why this cycle should ever end, until the end of reason.

In addition, Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press , 1970, is a good read.

HG Callaway:

What do the practitioners of alternatives to string theory make of Feynman's remark, “String theorists don’t make predictions, they make excuses” ? How is the educated public to understand such controversies in empirical science?

That's a very valid point. However, my simple answer is, it won't be philosophers who educate the public, to make sense of these controversies. It will be physicists who have a gift for explaining things clearly, as some of them have had over the years.

And, eventually, these new theories will either become solidified, with new observations and experimental results, or they will be discarded. For some reason, this point seems to be missed, often. If someone advances a new theory, in physics or any of the sciences, no one is expected to "just believe." That's religion, that's also philosophy, but that is not science.

I keep coming back to my old cheap shot. Philosophers spent centuries, literally, explaining to us why heavy objects fall to earth faster than light objects. They were all wrong, yet we dutifully continue to quote their sage words.

On the other hand, if we are actually talking about tangential subjects, such as the ethics of implementing some scientific discovery, that's an entirely different subject from what I was assuming. Those discussions do need to go on, without question, but let's not confuse them with the science itself.

One science cannot be put in a box, and say: this is "x-logy" .

Sciences are models of Data that generate the Collective Reality.

But they own their existence to Art& Culture that build the Collective Memory.

And they are challenged by ( Purpose/ Resource/ Value) Technologies that is underlying Collective Proclivity.

Philosophy of Science is a mean that challenges the models proposed by Science.

Albert,

I will try to address your "cheap shot " argument as you call it because it is a very common argument among most people external to philosophy (myself included).

In [1, p.19] states "Any opinion for which one can give reasons is admissible in philosophy, but once a claim has been supported by an argument, subsequent criticism must then engage the argument". This goes to the heart of how to read philosophy where "although any view, however outrageous, may be properly be introduced for philosophical discussion". People coming from outside of philosophy do not understand this (and it is still difficult for me sometimes). The question that immediately arises is why do it at all and this goes to the question on the steps to analyze a philosophical argument. You first have to accept the argument then:

Still one might argue on the value of such analysis. The reason is that it is not enough to strengthen your conviction but to know the strength and weaknesses of alternative lines of reasoning

Let me put it in context

I want to do away with newtons laws and state that there are two principles

immediately physicists ill cry 'nonsense', but if they are to engage in philosophy they must adhere to the principle outlined (they patronize that philosopher need to learn physics but the argument goes both ways and more so with them since they give opinions on almost anything if asked). In reality this formulation may give rise to simpler mathematical formulations than the ones exposed by Newton( who knows!!). And from there on I must expose the arguments in favor of such project and my reviewers will use the steps outlined to plug holes in my exposition(NOTE: I said my exposition and not my theory which are different things).

To move to your more subtle last point of " tangential subjects", lets move to an example of a more substantial argument in favor of the philosophy of science. Let us engage in the goal of unification within physics. I would argue(and it can become quite an extensive argument) that the current trend in physics is over-valuing the epistemological point of view of explanatory simplicity (trying to achieve something akin to a blunt Occam's razor). While it is a valid principle, it is not the only one and should be questioned if it is worth prioritizing so much vs other principles (such as avoidance of ad hoc elements or explanatory depth). This line of argumentation can lead to not just philosophical inquiry but a shift in mathematical exposition and evaluation.

[1]Jay F. Rosenberg, The Practice of Philosophy: A Handbook for Beginners 3rd ed., NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Manfredi & readers,

I would emphasize and reiterate that philosophy plays a role in mediating the developments in the sciences and scholarly disciplines --among the educated public--chiefly among academics --though there are exceptions of philosophers who became public figures --much as the astronomer Eddington became a public figure. (BTW: his public work stood in need of a good deal of philosophical criticism.)

The idea that heavier objects fall faster dates to Aristotle and was doubtlessly revived in the renaissance recovery of ancient thought. Its a hasty empirical generalization the logician might say--logic is part of philosophy. (I would hope that we don't regret the renaissance generally!)

Grist for the early physicists' mill. Galileo provided a neat refutation, as I recall. But philosopher don't simply repeat dogmas of the past, they also keep track of them and trace out their systematic roles and influence. This is a point of some importance, since Aristotle is such an ancient and pervasive influence on western thought. I think it may help to focus on the difference between understanding the history of though, the history of philosophy in particular, and accepting it on authority. It would be simply and baldly false to think that philosophers believe that heavier objects fall faster.

You verge on equating philosophy with simple dogmatism. That is a very serious mistake.

H.G. Callaway

---you wrote---

I keep coming back to my old cheap shot. Philosophers spent centuries, literally, explaining to us why heavy objects fall to earth faster than light objects. They were all wrong, yet we dutifully continue to quote their sage words.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Geigel & readers,

you make a very interesting argument, quoted below. Perhaps Manfredi will care to follow up on it.

One might note, too, that there is a great deal of emphasis on theoretical unification in contemporary physics. How are the four fundamental forces to be unified? How might gravity fit into the Standard Model of particle physics? How are GR and QM to be unified, etc? Perhaps this is what you have in mind concerning "explanatory simplicity"? But lacking experimental evidence concerning very high energy interactions or very small distances, we are going to find there are many different ways that accepted or established physics might be unified or placed into a single explanatory framework. While we reasonably cannot object to physicists working out the theoretical alternatives or developing them toward some sort of testable, empirical implications, the contending value of wider empirical comprehension is also worth attention --as the experimental physicists are sure to insist.

Is there such a thing as "speculative excesses" in purely theoretical physics--building too much of castles in the sky?

Let me recommend attention to a paper of mine, concerned with the various "virtues of hypotheses":

Chapter Abduction, Competing Models and the Virtues of Hypotheses

H.G. Callaway

---you wrote---

To move to your more subtle last point of "tangential subjects", lets move to an example of a more substantial argument in favor of the philosophy of science. Let us engage in the goal of unification within physics. I would argue (and it can become quite an extensive argument) that the current trend in physics is over-valuing the epistemological point of view of explanatory simplicity (trying to achieve something akin to a blunt Occam's razor). While it is a valid principle, it is not the only one and should be questioned if it is worth prioritizing so much vs other principles (such as avoidance of ad hoc elements or explanatory depth). This line of argumentation can lead to not just philosophical inquiry but a shift in mathematical exposition and evaluation.

Arturo, so okay, you explain how one must argue with philosophers:

Thanks for that. Something to hook onto, that I admit I was lacking.

So, briefly though, science can bypass all of that, if the philosopher's claim is proven to be wrong. It should not matter whether one can untangle that philosopher's argument, consistency, premises, axioms, adequately. All that matters is that his/her claim was wrong (assuming that's the case, of course).

Back to gravity. Science only needs to demonstrate what actually happens, hopefully explain why, replicate the results, quantify the results. Done. Some geek of a contrarian can have the guts to say "hogwash," and somewhere, somehow, centuries of philosophical argument may have been proven faulty. There was a twist in that "valid argumentation." Maybe this geek is too lazy to try to untangle Aristotle's arguments, but this does not make Aristotle any more correct.

I can easily argue why heavy objects should fall faster than light objects. In mere words, I can say, they fall faster because the force of gravity is stronger. A higher force will create more acceleration, therefore the heavy object falls faster. Simple. (Oh look, a feather falls more slowly than a rock. I told you.)

There is a missing piece in that argument. The missing piece in my brief "explanation" is: to accelerate two objects equally quickly, meaning, to reach the same terminal velocity in the same amount of time, the heavier object requires that more force be applied to it. Astonishingly enough, the amount of extra force required, for the heavy object to reach the ground at the same time as the light object, is precisely provided by the heavier objects greater mass (its greater weight), compared with the weight of the light object. (Plus, that feather is floating, not falling. The rock is not floating, it is falling.)

Newton put this down in simple, verifiably correct equations (at v

I am joining this thread now to add a different approach.

French philosopher Louis Althusser, following French philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem, argued that there are "general theories" with broad reach and applications and more limited, "regional theories."

His student, Alain Badiou, another French philosopher, has elaborated this further in his notion of the "conditions" of philosophy. Philosophy's conditions (we can call them sub-disciplines) are truth procedures - ways of arriving at the truth - while philosophy remains the "queen of the sciences" to arbitrate the truth claims of the conditions or sub-disciplines of philosophy. Nobelist of Medicine Eric Kandel has suggested the parallel notions of disciplines and sub-disciplines of any particular science in which the science that is the chief discipline organizes its cognate sciences as sub-disciplines depending on the problem at hand.

This is the way I recommend we see the relation between any science or discipline and philosophy - a regional condition or truth procedure or method to investigate while philosophy is that general discipline which reflects and gives value to the results and consequences of the other disciplines in what is popular known as the "philosophy of x," for example, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, or the philosophy of medicine.

Respectfully,

Vincenzo Di Nicola, MPhil, MD, PhD

Psychologist, Psychiatrist and Philosopher

University of Montreal & The George Washington University

Scientists make their best to creat the needed knowledge to serve their fields, but we have always to admit as scientists that we are talking about probabilities so even the statistical significance of 0.05 is also giving a small window of false positive hypothesis, in my opinion each scientific fact has a different philosophy behind it, and for those in need to explore that specific scientific fact, they need to read the story behind it and really read in a critical way and explore between the lines,

Albert ,

Lets assume for a moment that you are right

"So, briefly though, science can bypass all of that"

My answer to this is prove it. This first sentence is as complicated to prove (philosophy as well as science demands proof) as it can get and it is so because of the underlying argument of your paragraph which states:

"Newton put this down in simple, verifiably correct equations (at v

Callaway,

To answer your question:

'How might gravity fit into the Standard Model of particle physics? How are GR and QM to be unified, etc? Perhaps this is what you have in mind concerning "explanatory simplicity"? '

That is precisely where I am going with it, but I would carry it further my epistemological criticism in that there is a lack of homogeneity in theories along the physics spectrum almost to the point of being Ad Hoc elements that are incompatible in content as well as epistemological approach (and let me not get into metaphysics). This, I guess, has extra-scientific origins (how science is actually being carried out) .

BTW, thanks for the link, I have read quite a few of your papers, but had not seen this one. I will take the questions I have on it offline to avoid deviating from the main topic of this thread

First, in response to HG Callaway's complaint that science is going too far in looking for a unifying theory. Maybe it is, time will tell. But the reason this unifying concept is appealing is that we have seen it already, for example, between electricity and magnetism, between optics and EM theory, among mechanical, hydraulic, and electrical systems. These end up being characterized the same way, when we get down to the details of quantifying the effects. The math ends up looking identical. That's rather astounding, right there. So of course, it makes some sense to see whether this applies across the board. But no one is claiming that it must. They are investigating whether it does.

Arturo, you say,

What I will disagree is, that verifiable is what actually is.

Which is why I indulged in reductio ad absurdum. One example everyone should be familiar with is gravity, the speed at which objects fall to earth. I can show you equations that explain why things are as they are, in spite of the fact that for centuries, we were made to believe otherwise.

Further, due to a lack of you defining what is a model/theory, I will define it as a "Purposeful representation of reality"

"Purposeful"? I don't even know what that means. You start with a hypothesis. Such as, current through a wire creates a magnetic field around that wire. Or, heavy and light objects fall at the same speed. Then you run experiments to demonstrate this. Then you quantify the phenomenon, so that you can predict how the phenomenon will manifest, even before actually conducting the experiment. Other people around the world run their own experiments, and either agree or disagree with you. You don't even need to invent some story, as to why the phenomenon exists. Just show that it does, reliably, repeatedly, and quantify it.

So, you are not merely arguing with someone's logical train of thought. You are probing the natural world only, not someone's vivid imagination.

In addition, Mathematical models are simplifications of reality that allows for computational tractability(whether automated or by hand). If you allow (may I add fairly accurate definition of model), then the implied simplification will also allow for errors and corrections (or omissions) of outliers or whatever does not fit the beauty if the model/theory.

In physics, you always have to take into account the effect of errors. Every measurement made in an experiment comes with its tolerance, based on the instruments used. But let's not take this way too far. Even with such tolerances, heavy objects still don't fall to earth faster than light ones. At most, what error analysis will show, is that in some experiments, the heavy object falls ever so slightly faster, and in other experiments, ever so slightly slower, and that on average, they fall at the same rates. If you have done your error analysis correctly, the measurement errors of the input variables will accommodate any variability in the results. Tighten up the measurement accuracies, the results should also become closer. Yes, ultimately, you will reach Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. But again, let's not glom onto that and pretend that any answer is a good answer. Far from it.

Which one is better?

The better one is the method that does not merely depend on someone's imagination, someone's clever articulation, someone's supposedly logical arguments, but rather, on verifiable and repeatable results that the natural world demonstrates to us.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Just a short correction to Manfredi's prior note.

In fact I nowhere "complain" of science "looking for a unifying theory."

I did ask if there was presently too much emphasis on unification as contrasted with other desiderata of good scientific theory. I noticed no quotation from my writings, though such have been provided. No one doubts that unification is one desirable character of prospective scientific advances. So Testability is another.

Me thinks Manfredi doth complain too much. --And understand too little?

I think I have made it quite plain that new approaches may need development and it may take time before anyone figures out how to test them. This raises the question of whether there can be speculative excesses in science. A question is not a complaint.

H.G. Callaway

---Manfredi wrote---

First, in response to HG Callaway's complaint that science is going too far in looking for a unifying theory. Maybe it is, time will tell.

Albert,

Let me start with your conclusion since it seems fitting as a frame for my response

"The better one is the method that does not merely depend on someone's imagination, someone's clever articulation, someone's supposedly logical arguments, but rather, on verifiable and repeatable results ".

You are not alone in this view and this is worrisome for the wellness of scientific progress.

Let us see why this is so by taking the result of a simple google search for the definition of science and google gave me Collins dictionary definition as:

"Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about them."[1]

What I find troublesome is that your conclusion equates science to "that verifiable and repeatable results"

The problem with your equation is first of reducing science to just that and the second is that verifiable and repeatable a theory doth not make. Throughout all of physics scientists have to go by integrating their results with the previous knowledge base (which is my point on consistency which you have ignored) and here is where you enter the Quine-Duheim thesis. And if you understood my reply to Callaway on extra-scientific origins, most scientist rely on academic (and sometimes other) politics to fit the theories to current thinking and they are accepted as dogma.

Now for the fun part!

Let me explain what I mean by 'Purposeful' which in Data mining is a topic of current debate (I seriously invite you to further read on data mining/ML and how models are constructed)

You state "You start with a hypothesis." how did you get this hypothesis through interpretation of reality which is biased(my first example of purposeful).

But lets ignore this.

Then " you run experiments to demonstrate this" how is your experimental setup being done, how doe it isolate the dependent and independent variables (how did you select this variables and ignore X, Y, .....

But lets also ignore this

And " Then you quantify the phenomenon, so that you can predict how the phenomenon will manifest, even before actually conducting the experiment". You have omitted(I do not know why/ if it is on purpose or not) the process of assembling the model. When you arrange the measurement in order to interpolate and extrapolate you must do fitting of the function. whether you accept a linear or exponential fit is not just a matter of minimizing the error and this is where I see the error in your thought. I frankly suggest that you read [2]. Where for any set of points you can essentially fit multiple polynomial lines and one of the main reasons for choosing one over the other is Ockhams Razor. Already in even fitting the model you are introducing bias (known in ML data mining as the Bias/variance dilemma. for a discussion on this see [3]. and if we have a name for it in science the problem is is enough so I would encourage you to pay attention to it.). This is why my definition includes 'Purposeful', there is an underlying purpose of simplicity(by simplifying), while in epistemology there is more than just simplicity.

for the last part of this post

"At most, what error analysis will show, is that in some experiments, the heavy object falls ever so slightly faster, and in other experiments, ever so slightly slower, and that on average, they fall at the same rates". This shows that you are subestimating the role of science at least and at most ignoring what science is. Whatever the difference it is the ultimate goal of science to strive to understand the underlying phenomena not just dismiss it as mathematical error. There might be a complete scientific phenomena underneath and you are just ignoring it.

As a final thought, I frankly think that your arguments are strong effort at dismissing the most enjoyable part of science and it is when it engages in the dialogue with philosophy. Science is not just about measurements but has a duty alongside philosophy in explaining the way things are. Blind measurement does not explain, measurement just describes. please, do engage in reading about philosophy of science and get to know it, since there are brilliant people that have tackled the subject that you are dismissing poorly.

Hope this helps

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/science

[2] Bishop, Christopher M. Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning. New York :Springer, 2006.

[3] Hastie, Trevor, Robert Tibshirani, and J. H. Friedman. 2009. The elements of statistical learning: data mining, inference, and prediction.

There is a fruitful two-way relationship between science and philosophy. Questions such what actually exists and what counts as knowledge about our world are philosophical questions with naive scientific answers. For example, regions of space time exist, fundamental physical particles exist, but what but mappings ("visualisations") there are between fundamental particles and regions of space time is not clear. It is the role of philosophy to seek for clarity, often playing catch up with science of the day, and to reduce the naivety of scientific theories. There are scientific theories (notably quantum mechanics) which after much philosophical analysis are not clear (at least in part because measurement is not understood), and others (notably general relativity) where we can understand the conceptual basis of the theory. The point is not to comment on any particular scientific theory, but to note that philosophy can help assess what counts as a clear explanation, and historically has done so. I would single out R. Carnap (his "logical structure of the world") and P. Lorenzen (his "constructive philosophy") for their work on the philosophical basis of science, but note that the methodological approach of K. Popper and his school , where scientific theories grow and develop by means of objectively justifiable criticism, has also been helpful for the understanding of science by scientists as well as by philosophers. We should though not lose sight of the fact that scientific theories aim to predict observable properties of our world, which philosophy cannot contradict but can only seek to understand.

Andrew,

Coming from a background of building logic engines for NLP and doing machine learning to study empirical data, I find the notion of separating both fields very hard and for me. My view is that it is not just a matter black and white but a matter of the tonality of emphasis on one or the other. As way of example, the paper shared by H.G. Callaway has important repercussions on an abduction program that I am building and thanks to him I can build a better engine to analyze empirical data.

Where the matter gets even more fuzzy is in defining observables that we use for prediction and what it means to predict. This two questions are philosophical questions.

Still, another area where the subject becomes fuzzy is when dealing with scientific theories which have to rely on temporal logic, set theory and even topology. My problem is to try to encase these within only the framework of mathematics and not on philosophy/logic.

Arturo, there's nothing like real-world examples, to answer your points.

You state "You start with a hypothesis." how did you get this hypothesis through interpretation of reality which is biased(my first example of purposeful).

It almost does not matter how the scientist came up with that hypothesis. What matters is that it has to be proven, rather than just stated, and rather than just argued in a closed logical structure of its own. That hypothesis could be nonsense, and it will die a quick death. Or it can be proven to be factual, and that will obsolete any number of previous lengthy arguments.

Heavy objects and light objects fall at the same speed/acceleration. That's a hypothesis. Contrarian, since it disputed centuries of "common wisdom," but it was proven, as opposed to just argued. It was quantified, such that the results of any new experiments became predictable.

Current through a wire creates a magnetic field surrounding that wire, whose strength is directly proportional to the amount of current. Again, that was demonstrated, it was quantified, and the result of new experiments became predictable.

Now, sure, every time I design an electric motor, for a new application, I'm not going to go back and re-derive Ampere's law. So, the philosophers will claim that I have become just as much a True Believer as they are, in accepting the words of the ancients. But it's not true. My acceptance of Ampere's is entirely based on the fact that it can be replicated, and also on the fact that tomorrow, someone can come up with limiting conditions under which it might not apply. If those limiting conditions, where Ampere's law does not apply, are conditions that matter in my application of this new electric motor, I am fully aware that I would have to redesign it. I won't doggedly re-quote Ampere's law, under such circumstances. I would instead say, what Ampere claimed is wrong, for this environment.

And " Then you quantify the phenomenon, so that you can predict how the phenomenon will manifest, even before actually conducting the experiment". You have omitted(I do not know why/ if it is on purpose or not) the process of assembling the model. When you arrange the measurement in order to interpolate and extrapolate you must do fitting of the function. whether you accept a linear or exponential fit is not just a matter of minimizing the error and this is where I see the error in your thought.

As you see in my previous paragraph, that is always taken into account. The most obvious examples being, relativity and quantum mechanics, compared with classical physics. In fact, everything is always up for upgrade and rethinking, in science. Thus, classical physics continues to be correct, within its limits. Isaac Newton did not have the luxury of investigating things beyond certain limits. Then, beginning with the Michelson-Morley experiments, Fizeau experiments, and the Lorentz transformations, we have the makings of special relativity. Turns out, under different conditions than those assumed by Isaac Newton, his conclusions begin to diverge from the real world.

Noting was "omitted," Arturo, and I have mentioned this previously. Everything is always fair game, for some new scientist to claim, "balderdash!" But he has to prove it. Not just say it.

As a final thought, I frankly think that your arguments are strong effort at dismissing the most enjoyable part of science and it is when it engages in the dialogue with philosophy. Science is not just about measurements but has a duty alongside philosophy in explaining the way things are.

But that's because you are not describing science here, you are describing philosophy. Scientists also indulge in philosophy, but whatever they say on the matter can quickly be obsoleted. What is the magnetic field? Who knows? What is gravity? Who knows? These can be predicted, quantified, and used all the time in the machines we make, but no one knows exactly what they are, right? I can make up any fairy tales I like. Science addresses the how things actually are, not the why. Einstein himself said this, in no uncertain terms. Whatever he said about relativity could be proven false, as technology became improved enough to verify his assertions.

Already in even fitting the model you are introducing bias (known in ML data mining as the Bias/variance dilemma. for a discussion on this see [3]. and if we have a name for it in science the problem is is enough so I would encourage you to pay attention to it.).

Sometimes that's an issue, other times it isn't. A curve made to fit is frequently one that is close enough and makes equations usable, even if not exact. Such as, the characteristic curves used in solid state electronics. But so what, Arturo? Once again, errors are understood to exist, and are quantified, they are not ignored or swept under the rug. And that's errors in the model. There are also non-deterministic processes that are understood and quantified. There's a whole discipline in math, probability and statistics, which rigorously addresses non-deterministic processes. It still won't allow anyone to just make claims, without proof.

Now, we can indulge in philosophy, and ask whether anything is truly non-deterministic, or whether ultimately, every becomes deterministic. That's not science, it is speculation. If I lay a sheet of paper on the ground, when it just starts to rain, and catch the first few raindrops, they will appear to be randomly distributed, utterly unpredictable. That much we know. And yet, we can speculate. If we know the exact wind pattern, if we know where every spec of dust is in the air columns above that sheet, if we know everything there is to know about that environment, could we not predict exactly where every drop of rain would fall? Maybe. Not science, speculation. I can make up one fairy tale, the next guy can ignore what I say.

Arturo.

You make a very reasonable point about the difficulty of separating out science and philosophy. In the philosophy of physics for example, theoreticians have proved results with a direct bearing on questions such as realism and locality. There is a view of philosophy as conceptual engineering, analysing concepts and then reconstructing them in order to clarify their sense. While this view makes philosophy a bit dry, and does not cover the creation of novel world views that can be found in great philosophy, it does provide a difference in emphasis to subjects which construct models and test hypotheses via experiment. Cross-disciplinary research is very important to avoid intellectual silos.

Philosophy is powerful because philosophers love to challenge and see the strengths and weaknesses of any explanation but can become discursive and sterile, while science is powerful because it is grounded in experiment but can become intolerant of new ideas.

Andrew,

I guess it depends on the school of thought that one approaches the question of how coupled are the fields ( which is again a philosophical question).

Albert,

"But that's because you are not describing science here, you are describing philosophy."

Isn't this what you are doing by being in this thread? You are trying to propose a viewpoint and an interpretation of what science is, and that in itself is philosophical in nature.

Philosophy of science helps us to explore what constitutes science and scientific methods. In addition to traditional empiricism, rationalism and skepticism, other philosophical concepts such as reductionism, falsifiability, principle of parsimony, and paradigm shift are new approaches to understand the nature of science.

Arturo,

Isn't this what you are doing by being in this thread? You are trying to propose a viewpoint and an interpretation of what science is, and that in itself is philosophical in nature.

Yes, of course. I'm using mere words to explain what science does, not providing any specific experiments or proofs. So in a sense, if I merely state that heavy objects fall to earth at the same speed as light objects, contradicting philosophers of the past, then I'm being no more rigorous than the philosophers were. It looks like I'm saying, "Newton said so, and therefore it is."

The scientific explanation does not depend on mere quoting of the ancients. So, here it is.

1. Through extensive experimentation, within the limits of classical physics (v

Thank you to everyone who is keeping this discussion going. This is very productive and interesting and I am enjoying seeing the different viewpoints.

Albert,

Your last response does not address my point (which i just quoted from you by the way) in which by pointing to an objection about the impact of philosophy on science you are in fact doing philosophy. Since, you are trying to address the issue of philosophy as it pertains to science. You might want to disguise it as you want but the fact is that you are doing philosophy by taking a philosophical posture against philosophy. You cannot undo your philosophical argument by quoting science and expect the rest of your meta analysis to be non philosophical.

I would encourage you to read about the philosophy of science, set theory and logic. Especially logic, since your arguments are not being sound by using Straw man fallacy.

Regards

Arturo, this is the quote from you that I was directly addressing:

Isn't this what you are doing by being in this thread? You are trying to propose a viewpoint and an interpretation of what science is, and that in itself is philosophical in nature.

And I responded, in essence, that until my last post, you might indeed have argued that way. Previously, I was using mere words. But in the last post, where am I "proposing" and where am I "interpreting"? I went to some detail to show that science doesn't just argue points following some kind of logic, sound as that logic might appear. Instead, it verifies through experimentation.

So, keeping Newton's law of universal gravitation (F = GMm / r2) as is, it could have worked out that instead of F = ma, experimentation showed that law to be F = m2 * a. In such a universe, heavy objects would fall slower than light objects.

Conversely, it could have worked out to be F = m0.5 * a, in which case, heavy objects would fall faster than light ones.

Or perhaps, the law of universal gravitation could have turned out differently. Instead, science uses only what has been verified (except in cases where scientists are still merely speculating, which is very clearly stated). And thanks to that experimentation, and simple algebra, anyone can conclude that heavy and light objects must fall with the same acceleration. Anyone will come to that conclusion, no matter how clever they are at arguing points that cannot be verified.

Since, you are trying to address the issue of philosophy as it pertains to science.

I wouldn't attempt that, not being schooled in philosophy. Instead, I'm only trying to keep science from being misrepresented. It might be an interesting exercise to repeat the philosophical arguments that claimed that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. Then compare that argument with my previous post, and see where the flaws are in philosophy.

My bet is, the flaws are caused by basing the philosophical argument on "self-evident truths." Being "self-evident," these were not verified, and turned out to be wrong, leading to erroneous conclusions. (And yes, classical physics also has flaws, which I described, and there too, it is experimental verification that uncovered those flaws. SRT and GRT may yet prove to have flaws too. But still, within their limiting boundaries, classical physics and relativity hold remarkably well, to describe the natural world.)

Science tests while opinion, theory, and belief are usually stimuli founded. Science suggests that a debate against a proofed equation may result in elaborate scientific argument.

The Philosophy of Science is concerned with the probability of A+B equaling C, promised by tests using scientific methods. The Philosophy of Science is not seeking elaborate arguments; instead, it seeks certainty of results in application areas in varying environments.

The fields of Astronomy, Geology, and Physics are enough evidence of Science's truth. Science being debated as a proof- Let's move forward from this argument, please. It's 2019.

Happy New Year.

Albert,

'I wouldn't attempt that, not being schooled in philosophy".

This is my issue with your argumentation, you are by lack of not being schooled in philosophy making the error in engaging in it, not even knowing it and criticizing what you do not know.

I completely understand the point that you are trying to make about philosophers doing armchair philosophy on science. But, your approach and criticism is flawed methodologically as I pointed from the start and still is up to your last post. The right way is to learn about the field and contribute to it, not to charge criticism without knowing what the field is about.

I hope that you take my advise and I look to in the future engage again in this discussion. I think that your drive and commitment to argumenting can really make a difference in philosophy, given that you engage it correctly.

Until then

Regards

In my opinion science is that subject which must have both theoretical as well as experimental evidence of facts occurred around us that have reproducibility over time scale.

I think the standard social person (does not matter if it a philosopher, or soldier, or maybe professional killer): always telling "what looks more profitable for him". As an example: Hegel told that his Germany is the top of social development, Popper later: disagreed with Hegel, telling that his Britain is the top. The science: allows more or less survive to some asocial persons, who do not so fixed on personal profitability problems. It is an only interesting feature of the science, all other is absolutely not interesting.

science is the philosophy of NATURE that is all the time recognised by scientists with PhD from a world class University/Institute.

An attempt to institutionalize knowledge was undertaken in the history of early Christianity in Europe. And failed. Because of this fiasco, modern science originated.

Victor Okhonin That is rather simplistic. While it is partially true that what we call science today separated its authority from that of the Church, that is not the whole story and neither is it all of the truth to say that the Church attempted to institutionalize all knowledge. There were different periods and different attitudes throughout. Don't get seduced by a positivistic account of Galileo and Giordano Bruno as exemplars of the struggles for inquiry independent of the Church's authority.

Vincenzo Di Nicola

University of Montreal

Dear Prof. Di Nicola,

The relationship between the history of religion and science is very interesting. In general science has flourished when the dominant religion has been at least tolerant of new ideas, and not progressed when ideas that do not strictly adhere to the world view of the religion have been repressed. For example, the rise of Protestantism in Christianity encouraged tolerance, primarily because no two Protestant denominations could agree amongst themselves on how to practise their religion. It is a general truth that competition is healthy, in religion as in economics, because a single, monopolistic religion is likely to impose its world view and to develop a power structure that is invested in protecting that world view. Evidence would not get in the way.

Science needs to be based on evidence (supported by repeatable, reproducible experiments), although it is true that the institutions of science can themselves be resistant to new ideas, because of the investment of the life times and reputations in ideas that may be superseded. But science should know better, and on the whole generally has accepted new ideas (genetics and special relativity being two well known examples).

Dear Dr. Powell.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. There are several strands here to tease apart. One concerns the conditions under which thought, experimental thought or what was called natural philosophy in the early modern era, can thrive. Your thesis concerns religion as a controlling influence over this aspect of human inquiry. But if we separate that issue, which is complex and will admit of other nuanced ideas, something equally important is at stake. That is what Karl Mannheim called the sociology of knowledge. Your potted history of science, contrasting it against religion and introducing the word evidence is, I would argue strenuously, a post-hoc description dressed up as a theory of scientific progress and which has become an article of faith among people who profess to be scientists. I do not buy any of it.

Here are two key problems: faith (religion) vs. reason (science) and the notion that science proceeds by evidence. Neither are true. And the connecting argument or notion is passion or unreason, or more simply values, and more accurately the sociology of knowledge. Ideas occur in a context, both sociocultural and historical. Part of what makes any paradigm appealing is that it speaks to the preoccupations of its time. It is stupid and silly to talk about the persecution of witches or natural philosophers as authorities suppressing those having modern insights into the nature of the world or representing other views of society. Such people stepped so far outside of their dominant discourses as to be considered deviant and would be so considered in any society. The most liberal society or profession is hardly more tolerant than the so-called mediaeval mind-set. Only very rare examples of brilliant thinkers like Galileo fit the paradigm of brilliant scientists being persecuted by the Church; most of them were just kooky people, either misguided thinkers or odd people who pretended to be witches in order to register their rejection of society (this was a suicidal project where the Church held sway). The president of the Romanian Academy of Science told me how he receives letters from people with strange ideas such as correcting the Earth's axis. But this is how the contemporary story has been forged, retrospectively distorting history.

Even more is at stake with the story of how science progresses. It does not progress by evidence. It "progresses" - if such a word can be used in this context -by gaining foothold with opinion-makers, authorities, and ultimately the public. Data, evidence - or whatever you want to call such claims - first seduce with a better theory, a broader, more encompassing explanation or one that speaks to contemporary concerns. For this to happen, reason alone cannot explain why one hypothesis or theory holds sway over another. Passion, values, political considerations, personal preferences, cognitive limitations, venal power plays and the rest of human characteristics and social life come into play. The notion that there is an independent, fail-safe "life of the mind" based on reason that will vanquish unreason, faith - or "superstition" and "prejudice" as positivists would have it - is simply nonsense; and dangerous, distorting nonsense at that!

In my field, there is just as much basis to critique and reject psychopharmacology as psychoanalysis. It's a question of how we adduce the so-called evidence and what criteria we value and privilege to promulgate our arguments. We can better explain how ideas take hold, are disseminated and become dominant by understanding the sociology of knowledge, that is the social and historical context of how and why ideas take hold.

Vincenzo Di Nicola

Psychologist, Psychiatrist & Philosopher

University of Montreal

Dear Prof.Di Nicola,

I think it is fair to say that a view of science as continual ptogress towards an understanding of the world is naive. Institutional structures are fearful of radically different ideas, and do their best to repress or ignore them (Grassmann and Mendel being cases in point). But it is true that Einstein’s radical ideas on motion were accepted by the scientific establishment, and Grassmann’s and Mendel’s ideas were rediscovered (which is why we have heard of them). On the basis of history, discoveries in science should continue.

Your comment is tangential to my argument.

As for progress, like the word development (I am a child psychiatrist and this notion is supposedly at the centre of my work), I do my best to avoid using it. I prefer to find alternatives to both "progress" and "development" - not always easy. But I simply prefer not to think about history, society and the world in general in terms of progress.

Christopher Lasch wrote a significant prolonged argument on this called, "The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics." Neil Postman picked up another strand in this in his "Technopoly," which he defined as "the surrender of culture to technology." Progress is ultimately unscientific and its proponents use it like believers in a cult or religion. Technopoly is at war with subjectivity, which is the thread running through everything I hold dear, from psychology to the humanities and certainly the arts.

"Progress" always ends up looking like 1950s SciFi or popular science magazine images which reduce society to machines and robots. It's not the strength and power of machines (latter-day Frankenstein monsters) that worry me, but rather the implicit notion of crushing subjectivity, choice, even error!

I am reading a modestly creative dystopian novel called "Golden State" by Ben H Winters in which a near-future dystopia has been founded on "flat facts" and where lies are the ultimate evil. I'm only half-way through but I predict I will not agree with the author's poorly disguised intention to criticize Trump and the era of "fake news." The same thing that makes creativity, change, and new ideas possible (counterfactuality or subjectivity) also makes lies possible.

Be careful what you hope for!

Vincenzo Di Nicola