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====The Covariance Fallacy Laudan replied to Worrall’s criticism in 1989 in his [[Laudan (TODO find a proper place for this seection1989a)====The Covariance Fallacy can be found in Science and Values. It states that |''If itAin’t Broke, “[…Don’t Fix it'']] assumes . Laudan points out that the presence or absence of consensus with respect Worrall has conceded to factual claims can be used to infer the existence possibility of agreement or disagreement with respect to cognitive aims.”Form 1: The first form of the Covariance Fallacy describes those differences between scientists beliefs that stem from the aims and goals of science. For example, changes occurring in the Kuhnian tradition, each paradigm has its own metaphysics “implicit methods” and cognitive standards. If two scientists disagree, it stands to reason that they these changeable methods are in different paradigms. Furthermore Laudan believes that it is possible for scientists all subject to share cognitive goals but have fundamental disagreements about the nature bigger principles of the universescience which are unchangeable.Form 2[[CiteRef:: The second form of the Covariance Fallacy is the assumption that simply because any given scientists agree on the factual evidence and methodologies, they also share the same cognitive goals. Laudan (1989a)]]
|Criticism=In 1988 John Worrall responded to Laudan’s Science and Values 's final reply came in a work titled The Value of Fixed Methodology (1988.) his [[Worrall seeks to demonstrate how the reticulated model is incorrect by stating that when Laudan claims, methodological change to be real, he means only explicit methodological change is real. Implicit methodology to Worrall remains static. Worrall believed that, should methodological change truly be implicit, then the reticulated model could not provide an explanation for scientific change. If methodological change was purely explicit then it would not conflict with the hierarchical view and thus the reticulated model is not necessary. In 1989 Laudan replies to Worrall’s criticism in If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix it (1989). Laudan points out that Worrall has conceded to the possibility of changes occurring in “implicit methods” and that these changeable methods are all subject to bigger principles of science which are unchangeable.Worrall replies to Laudan in his |''Fix it be Damned: A Reply to Laudan (1989)'']]. Worrall claims that he and Laudan do not have a disagreement on the level of methods changing but they do at the methodological level. Worrall believes that even if some of these beliefs can be changeable there are also ones that are unrevisable. It is under the purview of this fixed element that scientists can do science. [[CiteRef::Worrall (1989)]]
TODO: Add these resources ass proper Bibliographic Records
Donovan, Arthur L., ed. Scrutinizing Science: Empirical Studies of Scientific Change. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988.
Laudan, Larry. "If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40, no. 3 (1989): 369-75.
Laudan, Larry. Progress and its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
Laudan, Larry. Science and Values: The Aims of Science and Their Role in Scientific Debate. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Worrall, John. "The Value of a Fixed Method." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39, no. 2 (1988): 263-75.
Worrall, John. "Fix It and Be Damned: A Reply to Laudan." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40, no. 3 (1989): 376-88.
no edit summary
|First Name=Larry
|Last Name=Laudan
|SummaryDOB Era=CE|DOB Year=1941|DOB Month=October|DOB Day=16|DOB Approximate=No|DOD Approximate=No|Brief='''Larry Laudan''' is an American philosopher of science who greatly shaped the debates in the field from the late 1970s till the mid 1990s. He |Summary=Laudan wrote many works , notably, [[Laudan (19771977a)|''Progress and its Problems (1977)'']], [[Laudan (19811981a)|''Science and Hypothesis (1981)'']], and importantly [[Laudan (19841984a)|''Science and Values (1984)'']] and [[Laudan (1996)|''Beyond Positivism and Relativism (1996)'']].[[CiteRef::Laudan (19771977a)]][[CiteRef::Laudan (1981a)]][[CiteRef::Laudan (19811984a)]][[CiteRef::Laudan (19841996)]] Larry Laudan’s most notable contribution to the study of scientific change is his ''reticulated model'' of scientific change where [[Method|methods]] of theory evaluation change together with scientific [[Theory|theories]] and goals of scientific inquiry in a piecemeal rational fashion. He later defended his view from the criticisms made by notable colleagues like [[John Worrall]].
|Historical Context=Prior to Laudan’s contribution to the discourse on scientific change, the Kuhnian tradition was the prevailing approach to the topic. In this preceding tradition, methods were seen as fixed to the paradigm in which they were utilized. Theories were also seemingly fixed to the paradigm in which they were discovered.
|Major Contributions====Early Views===Laudan’s early views are best seen through his work, [[Laudan (1977a)|''Progress and its Problems (1977)'' ]] where he discusses essentially attempted to explicate the one universal and unchangeable method of science as a process , akin to the previous attempts by Popper, Lakatos, and others. The central tenet of evolution the early-Laudan is the pragmatist idea that utilizes empirically verified evidencescientists prefer theories that solve more problems - empirical or conceptual. According Similar to LaudanLakatos, comparison he accepts that scientific theories live and die in an ocean of anomalies and that there is no such thing as a decisive refutation of theories a theory by a counterexample. However, he disagrees with Popper and concepts Lakatos on the question of novel predictions. While both Popper and finding Lakatos argued that a new theory is better than the solutions old theory only if it has confirmed novel predictions (the so-called "excess corroborated empirical content"), Laudan holds that novel predictions are not given any epistemic advantage in the process of theory choice. According to theories confronted with anomalies comprise Laudan, it is not a key part theory's ability to predict novel phenomena ''per se'' that gets the changing nature theory accepted, but its ability to solve more empirical or conceptual problems (one of sciencewhich can be its ability to predict novel phenomena).[[CiteRef::Laudan (19771977a)]]
===Later Views===
In the early 1980s, Laudan comes to realize that there is no such thing as a universal and unchangeable method of science. One early indication of this transition is found in the discussion of [[Dudley Shapere]]'s [[Shapere (1980)|''The Character of Scientific Change (1980)'']]. In that paper, Shapere defended the idea that methods of science change as a result of changes in our theories about the world change. In his comment on Shapere 's paper, Laudan seems to appreciate that methods of science are changeable while still arguing that there must exist "persistent metacriteria for the choice of criteria".[[CiteRef::Shapere (1980)|p. 247]]. However, in his [[Laudan (19841984a)|''Science and Values (1984)'']], Laudan presents his '''reticulated model''' which is an attempt to explain how methods of science change in a rational fashion. At the time, this view was against the commonly held belief that some core methods of science remain unchangeable. This lead to an important debate with [[John Worrall]] (see section ''[[#Criticism|Criticism'']]).
In Laudan's reticulated model of scientific change, theories, methods, and aims of science are all changeable. One aspect of having changeable theories, methods, and aims is that many different cognitive goals will satisfy the model. Laudan believes this is possible because there are many different reasons or purposes for why someone would want to engage in scientific inquiry and because of this there must be many different goals for studying science. Another aspect of having multiple goals is that the goals which meet the requirements of the model may be mutually incompatible. For instance, consider two scientists possessing different goals, Goal 1 and Goal 2. Goal 1 states that science is done to understand nature. Goal 2 states that science is done to prove nature doesn’t exist. Now Goal 2 is obviously rather extreme but Goal 2 suggests that nature is not real, where Goal 1 assumes natures existence. These two views are incompatible as they both strive to prove opposite claims. One cannot prove nature doesn’t exist if it is assumed nature does exist.
The model does not specify any way to determine which goal is the “right” one. Laudan suggests that “There is no single “right” goal for inquiry because it is evidently legitimate to engage in inquiry for a wide range of reasons and with a wide variety of purpose.” Furthermore the reticulated model allows for progress in science. Progress being, “a certain sequence of theories [that] move scientists closer to realizing or achieving a certain goal states.” As long as progress, relative to goals, occurs then it can be said to progressing. However, science does not have to progress. Laudan writes, “[…] there is nothing that compels us to make our judgments of the progressiveness of a theory choice depends upon our acquiescence in the aims of science held by those who forged that choice in the first place.” Laudan believed methods were changeable because they were dictated by the individual goals of those who were actually doing science, which are various. Implications that can be drawn from the ever changing goals of science are the apparent progressiveness of science is dependent on the value metric of the given scientific community in question.
This model has three levels of disagreement: factual, methodological and axiological. Disagreements in the scientific community range from differences in why two scientists are studying a given scientific phenomena to what constitutes evidence of a theory. An example of a disagreement of the factual level can be found in 17th century Newtonian physics, in where Newton believed in the possible existence of a vacuum in contradiction to the prevailing view of plenism. There are also levels of resolution: Methodological for Factualfactual, Axiological axiological for Methodological methodological, and none for axiological. The axiological level is fixed. Resolution is the act of discovering which side of a disagreement is deemed correct by the scientific community. To resolve the disputes the community must look to the next level to see if the disputed claim can work in the higher level. Laudan posits that this is the structure for how scientists resolve disputes prior to his reticulated method.
Laudan’s first distinct reason for refuting a goal is that the goal is seen as being utopian and unrealizable. He gives three types of utopianism: demonstrable utopianism, semantic utopianism, and epistemic utopianism.
===Laudan in the VPI project===
Paradoxically, in the famous VPI project that resulted in [[Donovan, Laudan, and Laudan (Eds.) (1988)|''Scrutinizing Science (1988)'']], Laudan appears to be tacitly subscribing to the idea that there is after all a universal and unchangeable method of science. While not openly articulated, this tacit premise underlies the whole exercise of trying to test different methodological dicta suggested by the likes of Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Laudan himself against the historical record. If not restricted to any particular community, time period, or discipline, such a testing would only make sense if the criteria of theory assessment were the same in all communities, all time periods, and all disciplines.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 18]] Since Laudan and other members of the VPI project didn't restrict themselves to a specific community, time period, or discipline, they tacitly assumed that the same method would be employed in all communities/time periods/disciplines. Clearly, this goes against Laudan's own views stated a few years prior in his [[Laudan (1984a)|''Science and Values (1984)'']]. Interestingly, in his famous debate with [[John Worrall]] in 1988-89, he returned to his 1984 position that methods of science change through time (see section [[#Criticism|Criticism]]). This mysterious inconsistency in Laudan's position remains to be explained.|Criticism=In 1988, John Worrall responded to Laudan’s [[Laudan (1984a)|''Science and Values'']] in a paper titled [[Worrall (1988)|''The Value of a Fixed Methodology'']]. Worrall seeks to demonstrate how the reticulated model is incorrect by stating that there is after all a core unchangeable method of theory evaluation. According to Worrall, Laudan's alleged historical examples of changes in methods are all examples of changes in explicitly stated methodologies. Implicit criteria that scientists actually employ in theory assessment, according to Worrall, remain static. Thus, according to Worrall Laudan's reticulated fails as it tries to explain something that doesn't really exist, i.e. changes in the implicit method of science.[[CiteRef::Worrall (1988)]]
The changeability of methods is one of the lasting components of Laudan’s approach to scientific change.
|Related Topics=Mechanism of Scientific Change, Mechanism of Method Employment, Mechanism of Theory Acceptance,
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