Falsifiability

This essay tries to explain and evaluate Friedman’s arguments about the way in which economic theories should be evaluated by considering both his views as well as other economist’s views’. Throughout the essay, I will be analysing different aspects from Musgrave’s categories; Negligibility, Domain and Heuristic assumptions. Friedman stated that we use theories to perceive “facts”, and we are not able to perceive “facts” without a theory (Friedman, 1966), which has a contradictory element behind…

The author of “Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries” discusses the difficulty that arises when trying to acknowledge an idea as a discovery. The questions raised are: when something is discovered, who made the discovery, is there record of who/when a discovery was made, and when is an idea actually a discovery. Kuhn advances the idea of a discovery by connecting it to the creation of a scientific revolution. He discusses that “a discovery begins with the awareness of anomaly”…

Hypotheses are proposed explanations for a fairly narrow set of phenomena, they are usually based on prior experience, scientific background knowledge, preliminary observations and logic. We often come up with multiple hypotheses to explain an observation, we just eliminate the ones that are wrong. What's left over is not a theory or a law or an 'ultimate truth', it's just a possible explanation for something, one that can lead us to new hypothesis, which we may agree or disagree with the…

In my everyday life things occur in which at times I cannot explain “how” nor “why” they occurred. Most of the time I become frustrated and simply let the situation take control of my emotions. I do not think of ways of making them better I simply say “forget it”. Applying logic and thinking of ways of making things better or making things work and coming up with a solution is using the Scientific method. The scientific method enables us to observe, ask questions, develop a hypothesis, test your…

The scientific method is a process commonly used as a means to research or study a certain problem in order to potentially become a theory. The method uses several techniques in order to study a phenomena and render a hypothesis that can be researched. Research can be done in several different ways. One example, in which is discussed in the textbook, is observation of chimpanzees by Emmanuelle Grundmann.(Jurmain et al 2013-14) Another process is through means of experimentation in order to test…

Public opinion is, in many ways, like science. A scientist will hear about or notice something and form an opinion. Good scientists will then continue to look into it to prove or disprove their original opinion, while less determined scientists will stick with what they originally found. Public opinion follows a very similar path. From the early years of school, people are taught that Christopher Columbus is a hero to the people of America. Many accept this notion as it is taught and move on;…

Science coming from the Latin word Scientia, meaning “knowledge,” is a systematic structure that builds and organizes knowledge from testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The nature of scientific progress and the rationality of scientific change lies between Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. The two prominent philosophers of the 20th century had very distinct viewpoints of science which led to countless debates. One of them, which I believe to be the most intriguing, was the…

The Bermuda Triangle: Pseudoscience? Coined by philosopher, Karl Popper, ‘Pseudoscience’ is a term that is prevelant and used to describe theories or even fields of study that appear scientific but are not authentically so. Much like scientific claims or theories, pseudoscientific ideas also stem from curiosity of the humankind. They tend to use seemingly scientific jargon to rationalize concepts but are often scarcely refutable and are devoid of experimentation and evidence. This essay aims to…

“Evolution as Fact and Theory” by Stephan Jay Gould outlines the constant taxing debate over evolution among creationists and evolutionists. He outlines the major issues that fuel the dispute and provides the logical and scientific approach to evolution for a clear argument against the claims of creationists. He firstly, provides a thorough explanation of the misconceptions of the definitions; “theory” and “Fact’. In the common vernacular a fact may be perceived as undeniable information with…

Common sense realism is a philosophy of mind rooted in a theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world in contrast some forms of idealism asserts that no world exists apart from my dependent ideas and some forms of skepticism says we cannot trust our senses. The realist view is that we perceive object as they really are they are composed of matter and occupy space and have properties such as size, shape, taste, color that are usually…