Philosophy of Science General

How do I into philosophy of science? What are the philosophical underpinnings of science? Points of dispute? Does science have "weak spots" (e.g. philosophical assumptions that put to question its validity)?

Pic related: how do we transition from a collection of facts or observations to a theory?

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search for correlations then look at the mechanisms involved to find causal links

But any distinct group of facts is susceptible of an indefinite number of explanations. How do we preference one explanation over another without recourse to an unprovable principle like "Occam's Razor"?

Protip: Popper is a retard that never studied science, his "empirical "falsification"" is total crap as you can see if you've ever taken freshman physics. True science is done with Bayesian Inductivism; it's not about facts but drawing ~reasonable~ conclusions from observations. There might be unseen exceptions, breaking points, or ignored nuances but these conclusions give us a basis to make reasonable predictions about future observations and enable us to engineer.

>What are the philosophical underpinnings of science

That ultimately natural science's source code is based on mathematical equations and these mathematical equations, properly viewed, are "nice".

>Points of dispute

Why is mathematics so unreasonably effective. See:
dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
and Hamming's repy
imsc.res.in/~sitabhra/teaching/mm12/hamming_unreasonable_effectiveness.pdf

>it's not about facts but drawing ~reasonable~ conclusions from observations
I was using facts and observations interchangeably in the OP. So, would you say that science does not deal with truths in the metaphysical sense that someone like Aristotle might, for instance? Does that mean that science rejects such "truths" or otherwise invalidates them, or does it simply mean that it is not concerned with them?

By controlling for variables to the greatest possible degree.

Also would you say that science is more "statistical" than logical/philosophical?

What's that got to do with it? You could still offer an indefinite number of explanations in principle for any collection of observations. If you disagree please explain why.

>But any distinct group of facts is susceptible of an indefinite number of explanations.
no they aren't. You usually have a good idea about causes before you even start. Despite the vernacular use, a hypothesis is a bit more than a wild guess.

>How do I into philosophy of science? What are the philosophical underpinnings of science?
That wholly depends on who you ask.
Most people, scientists included, seem to think Science™ works according to Popper's falsification theory to address the problem of demarcation (what is Science™, what is not).
A more interesting theory is Kuhn's paradigm theory, where science is the generally agreed upon facts according to the inductivism mentioned above, at the time, that keeps chugging along until it hits a problem, and then when you have a solution to that problem it's a new paradigm of that branch of science.

>Points of dispute? Does science have "weak spots" (e.g. philosophical assumptions that put to question its validity)?
There's always the problem of induction, which can sometimes lead to the crises Kuhn talked about.
>Pic related: how do we transition from a collection of facts or observations to a theory
Sudden flashes of inspiration

When I took phil of science I most enjoyed the philosophy of social sciences, it's fun to read up on rational choice theory and stuff.
As usual SEP has lots of great stuff on this for free.

youtube.com/watch?v=cG3sfrK5B4E&list=PL3B3C43B6268B77EC

Your post has zero content aside from "no u". Please elaborate if you wish to be a part of this discussion.

Occam's razor means dropping unrelated factors, to disprove it you would need to prove that you don't need proof that a factor is related to the outcome to include it in a theory.

Science is usually probabilistic rather than deterministic.

As long as you can demonstrate.

>if I give the rats penicillin, they are less likely to die of bacterial infection

And you've verified it multiple times, that's a useful bit of knowledge.

The raw underpinnings have no rational basis. They are based on what you learned as a babby crawling around, poking things and interacting with your environment.

When you have 2 building blocks, a 3rd doesn't magically appear out of nowhere

2=2
2≠3

if you want 3 you have to find 1 more

In the abstract I guess it is based on randomness, you just act based on your biologically programmed instincts and you get feedback from that and if particular actions result in the same feedback you have your first "a posteriori" judgment. Then it is on to "a priori" I guess.

>So, would you say that science does not deal with truths in the metaphysical sense that someone like Aristotle might, for instance?
Scientists deal with reality. Metaphysical truth is meaningless because it is this World and it's contents which are of concern to scientists. The very language and formulation of science rejects the notion of metaphysical truth, as the final arbiter of whether something passes to become "fact" is whether a result can be replicated in reality.

>You could still offer an indefinite number of explanations in principle for any collection of observations.
You test the explanations to see if they are true. If your explanation cannot be tested, then it is straight up rejected as crap.

yes

>Also would you say that science is more "statistical" than logical/philosophical?
The final decider in Science is an experiment. Most of Science is experimental, and theories and explanations are often developed through slow tinkering and experiment. Only in physics, does mathematics often come before experimentation, and even then, only when the results implied with your math line up with with the experiment is your hypothesis validated.

I wonder how people deal with correlation without using statistics.
Does it mean there was no real science before statistics was developed?

>Does it mean there was no real science before statistics was developed?
The opposite, it meant there was more legitimate science because the doubt placed on data was far greater. Now we have the whole fields such as sociology and psychology masquerading under the guise of science using terrible statistics to justify a result which then fails to replicate even once.

I wish other fields actually had the balls to do major replication programs like the psychologists do. Mind you that these came from WITHIN the field.

I bet that medicine would be blown the fuck out like no one has ever seen before and physicists, too, would get knocked down a bunch, unless we're dealing with the big international projects.

The APA is trying so hard to shake the publics bad opinion of the field. Yet more and more people are turning to psychiatrists and their drugs instead of psychologists. For things like anxiety no less. It's hard to watch.

Daily reminder that journals are the cause of the reproducibility crisis

If they published replicate studies and studies with no significant effects it would go a long way to solving it

In a way, people were using statistics thousands of years before the mathematical invention. We see correlation in nature - rain follows clouds. We see it over and over again. We conclude that rain comes from clouds. No math involved, but there's that correlation we made subjectively.

Everyone here should be mindful of the assumptions of science, namely
1. that nature (the universe) exists.
That is to say, we don't question whether our observations are real, or that we are real. It's unprovable and therefore, we just assume that everything exists.
2. That the laws of nature are consistent
3. that those symbols in our minds correlate to natural phenomena.
4. That nature is knowable and comprehensible
5. That nature can be described in an orderly manner - according to laws governing it.

None of these assumptions can be proven. Yet the scientific method must assume they are all true in order to function. It all falls back on these assumptions whenever you talk about a philosophy of science.

Especially now when some theories in physics begin to question a few of these assumptions, namely the first one I cited. It would be nice to see some of these assumptions addressed. But, as the old adage goes, here be dragons. We might not like what we find out. But like King Oedipus, I'm sure most of us are willing to plod on to the truth.
Exciting times.

>I wish other fields actually had the balls to do major replication programs like the psychologists do.
And why do they need to have major replication programs in the first place? Because when people first publish they run their data through a statistical slice and dice, get a number that means their result is "good" and then rush to the presses. Not once do they consider if the they method they used to applicable to the situation, if other methods confirm the statistical validity of their results, or if even perform statistical due diligence when picking their sample groups. I'm not saying all or even most of the field is bad, but there is a problem. Also, I happen to agree with your statement on medicine, especially a lot of the BS lifestyle ones where they attempt to claim that [beloved food group that everyone enjoys] has [unusual capacity to shorten or lengthen your lifespan].

Are there any laws of logic like the laws of physics?

Why don't we all become Vulcans and shit and solve every problem with objective rational thought.

>How do we preference one explanation over another without recourse

We don't. We use what works and what is easy. Classical Mechanics could be explained by Newton's laws, or could be explained by the principle of least action, or could be explained by energy conservation, which could be derived from time invariance.

>And why do they need to have major replication programs in the first place?
Because the problem is inherent to the way all science is published. It is not a problem specific to sociology or psychology.

ls there any famous or somewhat famous writer/philosopher who claimed that man is governed by natural law and his instincts? I can't find any.

>his instincts
Freud is a somewhat famous writer

philosophy of science has good textbooks out there, just look it up.

in the course I took we covered the "received view," looked at the challenges to it, read Kuhn, and then looked at post-Kuhnians trying to clean up what he said.

actually, just read Kuhn.

I'm glad to see Veeky Forums knows better than to take the Popper pill.

Trashtalking Popper without taking the historical context into account is too much, though, and the way he praises Bayesian Inductivism does sound like he's straight out of the freshman physics course he mentioned.

>never studied science
He studied pedagogy and wrote his dissertation under Karl Bühler, from whom he learned psychology.

Exclusively natural scientists also tend to make very bad philosophers of science, the same for the exclusive vice versa, so questioning his authority on the philosophy of science based on him not being a "scientist" (using the narrow Anglo definition I disagree with) is silly.

>actually, just read Kuhn.
Just reading Kuhn is a bad idea. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a fun read, but it's hard to read properly because it's incredibly imprecise, as its 21 different usages of the term "paradigm" Kuhn himself admitted shows.

>psychology
>a science

kek

I can't believe I forgot about Freud, I even had an exam on him last week. Thanks a lot man you allowed me to finish a 1000 words long essay which I managed to complete 30mins before it would've been too late.

In Process and Reality (42) Whitehead defines rationalism as the hope that we can create a general theory such that everything we find in experience can be held up as an example of that theory.

It is a "hope" since Whitehead knows its unobtanium. Rationalists are those who nonetheless hold onto that hope as an "ideal which is seeking satisfaction". In a sense, rationalism is the tipping point where science/philosophy crosses over into religion. It falls short of being a religion because it always remains an ideal, not a premise upon which a religious dogma is formed. The Enlightenment was an epoch when this ideal thrived.

Why is modern science anti-rationalist? Because it has become self-content and professionalised and so given up this ideal - it is increasingly a faith built on weak, enfeebled, superficial or arbitrary starting points and premises. It relies on technicians who blindly following habit, use technical instruments instead of imaginative thinking, mistake abstractions for concrete reality, and accept contradictions as good enough.

As evidence, he offers a retorsive argument: scientists create experiments in which they themselves rely on final causation (for instance, taking photographs for the sake of studying facial emotions) but then propose theories in which there is only efficient causation - without attempting to reconcile the contradiction between what they are doing and saying.

Whitehead's argument is that science as a whole is simply not interested in "justifying its faith or to explain its meanings."

Given this trend is quite strong today, and Whitehead was an author on a then undisputed mathematical approach to proving all true statements in mathematics, it's no surprise that he would happily use such strong words. It's not until Gödel showed that not only did PM not accomplish its goals but also that no such document could ever accomplish them that Whitehead's bubble was popped.

PM was never 'undisputed'. Whitehead worked on PM for over ten years with Russell, publishing in 1910, 12 and 13 before abandoning the project. PM's logicism was unproven and incomplete.

It's also misleading to infer Whitehead was "happily using such strong words" until Gödel popped his bubble. By Gödel's publication in 1931, Russell and Whitehead had long ago moved onto other projects. Whitehead acknowledges Gödel’s proof in 1938, writing "Today, even Logic itself is struggling with the discovery embodied in a formal proof, that every finite set of premises must indicate notions which are excluded from its direct purview." (MT 2). Whitehead, as philosopher, immediately adds that philosophy "should never start from systematization." He credits this to William James, whose "intellectual life was one protest against the dismissal of experience in the interest of system. He had discovered intuitively the great truth with which modern logic is now wrestling." (MT 3). In other words, after PM, Whitehead intuitively understood the limitations of systematic thought in science and logic. A cursory reading of Whitehead's Process and Reality (1929) confirms this. For Whitehead, Gödel's result was redundant... though nice to have.

PS. For those interested in Whitehead, Thinking with Whitehead, by Isabelle Stengers is a great read.

r>, it's no surprise that he would happily use such strong words
>It's also misleading to infer Whitehead was "happily using such strong words" until Gödel popped his bubble.
Why write him being happy to use these words in the first place then?

> For Whitehead, Gödel's result was redundant
Considering that people wasted lifetimes to create systems like in the Principia Mathematica, I don't think Gödel's results are intuitive even to people working on logic, and to me, having them in a formalized is always better than them just staying a crude intuition.

>best thread on Veeky Forums is a STEM one
>Veeky Forums is now a Veeky Forums colony

humanitards btfo

...

>implying STEMfags care about the philosophy of science
>implying the phil of science doesn't cover other aspects than STEM

bump

>would you say that science does not deal with truths in the metaphysical sense that someone like Aristotle might

Exactly.

>Does that mean that science rejects such "truths"

Science does make a few key assumptions like they exist (the universe is not arbitrary and disorderly).

>or does it simply mean that it is not concerned with them

The only way to gain knowledge of "the truth" is to ask God. All we can hope to attain are good approximations.

so what religion are you?

>Also would you say that science is more "statistical" than logical/philosophical

In the Bayesian sense.

>If your explanation cannot be tested, then it is straight up rejected as crap

Tell that to biologists.

>why do animals/people X
>Well, X evolved because of Y.

Usually you can find dozens of plausible sounding Y's but they run with the first one that pops into their head.

bump

Science demands an orderly universe in which basic laws don't change willy-nilly in order to function correctly. Experimentation needs to be repeatable to mean anything. That's basically it. So far that assumption seems to have born out pretty well.

*tips*

>True science is done with Bayesian Inductivism
Yudkowsky pls go

bump

You concentrate on certain aspect and leave all others to chance. I think they call call it experimenting.

science is basically a process of weaving narratives around disparate pieces of evidence, in such a way that the narrative can absorb newer and wider pieces of evidence

narratives are replaced by one another if they can't account for a new piece of evidence or fail to predict a new piece of evidence

it's essentially a literary tool, and has nothing to do with tru or false

essentially it's a predictive tool based on words

the answer is which explanation has the greater predictive value

take 5 pieces of evidence
come up with 4 explanations
3 of the explanations can predict/account fot a 5th piece of evidenc
1 can account for a 6th

we use that one.

at no point does whether the explanation is true/false come into it

science has nothing to with true/false. it's a tool. it's like saying a hammer is true or false, rather than being more useful than wrecnh for banging in a nail

this is a university culture problem not to do with science itself

basically publish or perish means shit things gets puvlished

you'd do the same if it meant keeping your job

money ruins everythign, or rather, lacktherefo