Bsc150; The Philosophy Of Science

Front 1

What is one of the key limitations about Popper's concept of falsification as a means of distinguishing science from pseudoscience?

Back 1

History shows that scientists do not simply abandon their theories whenever they conflict with observational data.

Scientists usually continue to look for solutions when a theory appears to conflict with observational data.

Front 2

In what way did Wittgenstein suggest that science is like a game?

Back 2

The idea that science might not have one specific criterion that distinguishes it from pseudoscience could be addressed if we use Wittgenstein's idea of 'family resemblances.' Just as games have no one specific feature common to all games, but instead have in common several features from a set of game-like features, so may science not have one specific feature that defines it, but instead a cluster of features possessed by most, but not all, sciences.

Front 3

What was an achievement of Isaac Newton?

Back 3

Every body in the universe exerts a gravitational attraction on every other body.

And the force is proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of their separation distance.

Front 4

What was Peter Strawson argument to defend the use of induction?

Back 4

True or False? Peter Strawson defended the use of induction by arguing that it is in fact a standard that we use to decide whether claims about the world are justified, and so is true by definition.

Front 5

What was one of the problems of induction as described by David Hume?

Back 5

Induction assumes (illogically) that nature is uniform.

The problem is that there is no strictly rational basis for believing that nature is uniform, and that past events can accurately predict the future.

Front 6

What was Karl Popper's view regarding Freud's psychoanalytic theory?

Back 6

Popper said that because Freud's theory could be made to fit and explain any patient's behaviour, it was not falsifiable, and hence not scientific.

Popper argues that theories need to be conceptually falsifiable, and that Freudian psychoanalysis was a pseudoscience because it could explain anything but not predict outcomes.

Front 7

What are anti-realists view on theories that are empirically proven?

Back 7

Anti-realists claim that just because a theory is empirically successful, that does not mean we should believe that it actually represents the 'real' world. A good theory has good explanatory and predictive powers. We need to be aware that just because it fits the data, the theory may not actually be a true description of reality.

Front 8

What was the Copernican revolution?

Back 8

The Copernican model was heliocentric, Nicolas Copernicus suggested the sun was the central body around which the earth and other planets orbited.

Front 9

Define: SCIENTISM

Back 9

Scientism is a pejorative term to describe 'science-worship'.