The scientific method forms the fundamental roots of science as a whole - so when the method itself is placed under scrutiny, the nature of science is also caught in the crossfire. A characteristic that Alan Chalmers, and scientists in general, share about science is rationality – without rationality all that is left is science fiction. In accordance with the quote by Chalmers and his assumption that inductivity leads to certainties, a common rebuttal that demonstrates said scrutiny is that induction itself is irrational (proof shown by Hume’s Problem of Induction). One attempt to salvage the rationality of the scientific method was by Karl R. Popper with the hypothetico-deductive method – a potential solution negating the need for induction.
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The observations are repeated under a wide variety of conditions 3. No accepted observation statement conflicts with the derived universal law (or other generalisations (SCIE1000) It is by this process that an inductivist derives hypotheses, laws and theories. This makes obvious the rationality, or lack thereof, within the inductive method. This problem of induction helps to form a more concise definition of induction: The conclusion is coherent with the premises, but the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion (SCIE1000). This is where the problem of induction comes to fruition, due to the truth of the premises not providing the rational necessary, the argument can be viewed as being open-ended. Chalmers to say that facts acquired by observation and experimentation are ‘proven knowledge’ assumes a bound – the truth of the premise guarantees the truth of the conclusion; this is not the case. Due to the unboundedness of the inductive method, science will always encounter the ‘what if’ since there are infinitely many possibilities, allowing for a posteriori knowledge to be dubious at …show more content…
Whilst both the inductive and hypothetico-deductive method contain both positives and negatives. Overall, they both fail to remove the dubious nature of scientific claims, whether that be due to the unboundedness of the argument or the conclusion only being confined within the premise. However, Thomas Kuhn’s Theory of Scientific Revolution argues that surrendering the notion that science is an inherently truth-seeking enterprise is for the betterment of science. In turn, replacing it with the idea that the development of theories is analogous to natural selection (Shaver, 2018). In his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Kuhn proposed the concept of paradigm shifts which lends itself to the idea of natural selection - where if one paradigm can no longer explain the observations, a new paradigm is postulated. This approach forfeits the right of rationality but creates a basis to which can be expanded upon. Despite other methodologies aiming towards objective truth where the Theory of Scientific Revolution obviously lacks, proving on probabilistic grounds that progress towards the objective truth is being made is impossible (Shaver, 2018). The scientific method is something that has been the defining factor for science since the birth of science
The observations are repeated under a wide variety of conditions 3. No accepted observation statement conflicts with the derived universal law (or other generalisations (SCIE1000) It is by this process that an inductivist derives hypotheses, laws and theories. This makes obvious the rationality, or lack thereof, within the inductive method. This problem of induction helps to form a more concise definition of induction: The conclusion is coherent with the premises, but the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion (SCIE1000). This is where the problem of induction comes to fruition, due to the truth of the premises not providing the rational necessary, the argument can be viewed as being open-ended. Chalmers to say that facts acquired by observation and experimentation are ‘proven knowledge’ assumes a bound – the truth of the premise guarantees the truth of the conclusion; this is not the case. Due to the unboundedness of the inductive method, science will always encounter the ‘what if’ since there are infinitely many possibilities, allowing for a posteriori knowledge to be dubious at …show more content…
Whilst both the inductive and hypothetico-deductive method contain both positives and negatives. Overall, they both fail to remove the dubious nature of scientific claims, whether that be due to the unboundedness of the argument or the conclusion only being confined within the premise. However, Thomas Kuhn’s Theory of Scientific Revolution argues that surrendering the notion that science is an inherently truth-seeking enterprise is for the betterment of science. In turn, replacing it with the idea that the development of theories is analogous to natural selection (Shaver, 2018). In his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Kuhn proposed the concept of paradigm shifts which lends itself to the idea of natural selection - where if one paradigm can no longer explain the observations, a new paradigm is postulated. This approach forfeits the right of rationality but creates a basis to which can be expanded upon. Despite other methodologies aiming towards objective truth where the Theory of Scientific Revolution obviously lacks, proving on probabilistic grounds that progress towards the objective truth is being made is impossible (Shaver, 2018). The scientific method is something that has been the defining factor for science since the birth of science