Why can’t we empirically confirm that the earth revolves around the
sun?
Problem of retrograde motion:
-Copernican solution
-Ptolemaic solution
Can we judge in terms of simplicity?
Kitcher:("Believing Where We Cannot Prove")
Why is the distinction between science and religion too easy?
Important issues considered here:
-falsifiability:
-explanatory power.
-indeterminacy thesis.
-objective reasons for deciding b/w theories
-scientific conclusions are rarely certain
Why is science often unsuccessful?
Creationist Argument:
1) Science is a body of proven truths.
2) Evolutionary theory is not proven.
3) Therefore, evolutionary theory is not science.
Kitcher attacks the soundness of (1), not (2).
Predictive Power
Why do we think that a good theory will make successful predictions?
theory = a collection of statements.
Some are universal generalizations.
Hence, theory can be used to derive statements about what we should
observe.
observational consequences: must be true if theory statements are true
and they must be observationally verifiable.
In fact, any theory with a false observational consequence must
contain a false statement.
Good theories can be falsified.
To be unfalsifiable is simply to have no observational consequences.
Naive Falsificationism
problem with the view that scientific theories must be falsifiable.
Either:
i)it debars almost everything from being science
ii)it lets anything in.
Duhem: Scientific hypothese do not confront the world one by one. Rather, hypotheses are tested in large bundles
When our observational consequences are false we’re not logically compelled to give up our theory. Hence, to point out that theories fail to be falsifiable is not really such a damaging accusation after all.
Successful Science:
However, a science must be vulnerable.
Characteristics of good theories:
independently testable: An auxiliary hypothesis must be testable
independently of the theory it was is introduced to save.
unified: It should be simple and have a small number of problem solving strategies that can be applied to a large number of situations. (K.I.S.S.)
fecundity. A good theory should open up new areas of research.
A good theory should be as concerned with “giving good explanations of unexplained phenomena as it is with generating correct predictions.”