Philosophy of Science

What is science?

• "the attempt at the posterior reconstruction of existence by the process of conceptualization" A. Einstein, i.e., explain, or know, nature by critical thinking
• Scientific Method: Problem - Hypothesis - Prediction - Experiment - Results
• Levels of explanation
  • ----- Law --- - --- Theory ----- - --- Speculation ---
    Newton's Laws - General Relativity - Gravitons

When is a theory scientific?

• guided by natural phenomena
• ask questions of nature
• empirical testability --- consensus
• empirical testability --- repeatability
• explanatory by reference to natural law  
  Science for manipulation -- science for understanding
  • How does a laser work? an atom bomb? ...?
  • "[W]hat makes the general theory of relativity so important is not that it can predict planetary motions a shade more accurately than Newton's theory can. It is that it reveals and explains previously unsuspected aspects of reality, such as the curvature of space and time. This is typical of scientific explanation. Scientific theories explain the objects and phenomena of our experience in terms of an underlying reality which we do not experience directly. But the ability of a theory to explain what we experience is not its most valuable attribute. Its most valuable attribute is that it explains the fabric of reality itself." The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch, 1998.
  • Allows and forbids specific outcomes
• testable - make "risky" predictions  
• Logical positivists assert that only empirically verifiable statements have meaning
• Carnap, logical empiricist, calls for gradually increasing confirmation
• Popper - verification counts only for "risky prediction"
• tentative  
• never "prove" a theory true
• subject to revision
• falsifiable  
• incompatibile results must be possible that would falsify the theory
  magnetic monopole searches
• ¿ many-worlds hypotheses?

What science isn't OR The Limits of Science

Science cannot, by its nature, address 'Ultimate Questions'

• Ethics - How do I live an acceptable life?
• " it is .. clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be." A. Einstein
• Death - How do I come to terms with fundamental human limitations?
• science may postpone death
• science can only extend our powers and knowledge
• Life - What is the meaning of life?
• Copernicus & Galileo showed that we are not at the center
• 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' Pierre Simon Laplace, RE: Exposition du système du monde
• Darwin - man's origin in terms of replication and selection
• "The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be." Carl Sagan on Cosmos
• Many say that life has no significance; randomness precludes it. e.g., Richard Dawkins
• Others that the very nature of reality declares the glory of God Kenneth Miller

"Fallacy of (over)extrapolation"

Metaphysics	Science
Literal religious creation accounts	science is wrong
God is an unnecessary hypothesis	Laplace, Darwin, ...

• Both fallacies stem from beliefs extrapolated outside discipline boundaries
• Religious explanations are not necessarily scientific explanations
• Just because the supernatural is inaccessible to measurement does not preclude it from having a reality, only that it is not the same as "natural" reality
• "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein