Difference between revisions of "The Theory of Scientific Change"
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• Can there be delegation authority to tools, or other material objects? Suppose a community takes all of its scientific knowledge from an ancient manuscript. Is the community delegating authority to the long-dead writers of this manuscript, or to the book itself? When scientists use an instrument in an experiment, who are they delegating authority to? Standard research practice says that when using an instrument in an experiment, the scientist should cite the manufacturers of the instrument in their research paper. Does this indicate that authority is being delegated to the manufacturers rather than the tool itself? If authority can be delegated to a material object, does this mean that the object is the bearer of a mosaic? (Nick Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan, 2016) | • Can there be delegation authority to tools, or other material objects? Suppose a community takes all of its scientific knowledge from an ancient manuscript. Is the community delegating authority to the long-dead writers of this manuscript, or to the book itself? When scientists use an instrument in an experiment, who are they delegating authority to? Standard research practice says that when using an instrument in an experiment, the scientist should cite the manufacturers of the instrument in their research paper. Does this indicate that authority is being delegated to the manufacturers rather than the tool itself? If authority can be delegated to a material object, does this mean that the object is the bearer of a mosaic? (Nick Overgaard, Hakob Barseghyan, 2016) | ||
|Resource=Barseghyan (2015) | |Resource=Barseghyan (2015) | ||
| − | |Prehistory====Ludwig Fleck | + | |Prehistory====Ludwig Fleck=== |
| − | [[ | + | [[Ludwig Fleck]], an epidemiologist, made one of the earliest attempts to understand scientific change as a social process, and to develop a conceptual framework for understanding how scientific communities function.[[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] His most comprehensive work was ''Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' published in 1935.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] For Fleck, cognition was necessarily a collective social activity, since it depends on prior knowledge obtained from other people. New ideas arise within ''thought collectives'', which are groups of people who participate in the mutual exchange of ideas. As an emergent consequence of mutual understandings and misunderstandings within such a group a particular ''thought style'' arises. An established thought style carves the social world into an ''esoteric circle'' of expert members of the thought collective, and an ''exoteric circle'' who are outside the thought collective. How individual members of a thought collective think and perceive within the relevant domain is determined by the thought style. Scientific facts are socially constructed by thought collectives. Reality in itself cannot be known, but the thought style can be compared with reality through observation and experiment, and may be revised or abandoned on the basis of such interactions.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]] [[CiteRef::Sady (2016)]] The thought style of a particular collective can, at most, be only partially understood by members of other collectives, and may be completely ''incommensurable'' with the thinking of some other collectives. |
| − | ===Thomas Kuhn | + | ===Thomas Kuhn=== |
| − | Drawing partially on Fleck’s ideas, physicist and historian of science [[Thomas_Kuhn|Thomas Kuhn]] published his ideas about scientific change as 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' in 1962.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]] Kuhn spoke of ''scientific paradigms'', which are constellations of theoretical and metaphysical beliefs, values, methods, and instrumental techniques shared by a scientific discipline. | + | Drawing partially on Fleck’s ideas, physicist and historian of science [[Thomas_Kuhn|Thomas Kuhn]] published his ideas about scientific change as ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' in 1962.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]] Kuhn spoke of ''scientific paradigms'', which are constellations of theoretical and metaphysical beliefs, values, methods, and instrumental techniques shared by a scientific discipline. A paradigm determines which questions are asked of the natural world by observation and experiment. Adherents to a paradigm engage in ''normal science'', which solves the puzzles needed to expand the range of natural phenomena that can be explained using the paradigm. Eventually, ''anomalies'' may be unearthed. These are phenomena that recalcitrantly resist explanation in terms of the paradigm. If anomalies persist and grow in number, practitioners seek fundamentally new approaches. If a new approach is successful at resolving salient anomalies and is deemed to hold promise for solving new puzzles, a ''scientific revolution'' may result, in which a new paradigm replaces the old. Because paradigms are holistic networks of theories, methods, and values, they are ''incommensurable'' with one another, meaning that the terms and categories of the old paradigm cannot be translated into those of the new. Adoption of a new paradigm thus appeared, especially to Kuhn’s critics, to involve a kind of non-rational leap of faith.[[CiteRef::Bird (2011)]][[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)]] |
| − | ===Paul Feyerabend | + | ===Paul Feyerabend=== |
| − | In his ' | + | In his ''Against Method'', published in 1975, philosopher [[Paul_Feyerabend|Paul Feyerabend]], an epistemic anarchist, launched a much more radical attack on the idea of a fixed scientific method, and on the rationality of science.[[CiteRef::Feyerabend (1975)]] On his account, science does not possess the regularities that would make a science of science and a theory of scientific change possible. Social constructivists likewise favored an historically contingent, relativist, and particularist view of science, which they supposed was incompatible with a coherent theory of scientific change. |
| − | ===Irme Lakatos | + | ===Irme Lakatos=== |
| − | Philosopher [[Imre_Lakatos|Irme Lakatos]], a proponent of the rationality of science and of a fixed scientific method launched a new account of scientific change with his 'Methodology of Scientific Research Programs' in 1970.[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1970)]] Lakatos sought to challenge both Kuhn and Feyerabend. He saw interrelated scientific theories as constituting ''research programs''. Unlike Kuhn, he believed that scientific fields typically host multiple competing research programs and rejected the idea of coherent unitary paradigms. Not all theoretical constituents of a research program were assigned equal importance. The ''hard core'' of a research program consisted of those theoretical claims that were indispensable to it. Adherents to a research program attempt to explain an increasingly wide range of natural phenomena in terms of the core claims. This is the ''positive heuristic'' of the research program. The ''protective belt'' consists of those theoretical assumptions that allowed the application of the hard core to an increasing range of cases. Scientists used their ingenuity to protect the hard core by making alterations to the protective belt so as to protect the core from falsification. The protection of the hard core is a research program's ''negative heuristic''. A ''progressive'' research program is one that makes successful novel predictions. A ''degenerating'' research program is one whose predictions repeatedly fail, and whose protective belt must be altered in an arbitrary, ad hoc fashion to protect the hard core from falsification. Lakatos rejected Kuhn’s distinction between normal and revolutionary science, and supposed that a revolution occurs when scientists simply switch allegiance from a degenerating research program to a progressive one. | + | Philosopher [[Imre_Lakatos|Irme Lakatos]], a proponent of the rationality of science and of a fixed scientific method launched a new account of scientific change with his ''Methodology of Scientific Research Programs'' in 1970.[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1970)]] Lakatos sought to challenge both Kuhn and Feyerabend. He saw interrelated scientific theories as constituting ''research programs''. Unlike Kuhn, he believed that scientific fields typically host multiple competing research programs and rejected the idea of coherent unitary paradigms. Not all theoretical constituents of a research program were assigned equal importance. The ''hard core'' of a research program consisted of those theoretical claims that were indispensable to it. Adherents to a research program attempt to explain an increasingly wide range of natural phenomena in terms of the core claims. This is the ''positive heuristic'' of the research program. The ''protective belt'' consists of those theoretical assumptions that allowed the application of the hard core to an increasing range of cases. Scientists used their ingenuity to protect the hard core by making alterations to the protective belt so as to protect the core from falsification. The protection of the hard core is a research program's ''negative heuristic''. A ''progressive'' research program is one that makes successful novel predictions. A ''degenerating'' research program is one whose predictions repeatedly fail, and whose protective belt must be altered in an arbitrary, ad hoc fashion to protect the hard core from falsification. Lakatos rejected Kuhn’s distinction between normal and revolutionary science, and supposed that a revolution occurs when scientists simply switch allegiance from a degenerating research program to a progressive one. |
| − | ===Larry Laudan | + | |
| − | In his 1984 'Science and Values' philosopher [[Larry_Laudan|Larry Laudan]] accepted growing empirical evidence that the methods of science had changed with time.[[CiteRef::Grobler (1990)]] [[CiteRef::Laudan (1984)]] "Our views about the proper procedures for investigating the world", he wrote, "have been significantly affected by our shifting beliefs about how the world works".[[CiteRef::Laudan (1984)|p. 39]] However he did not accept Feyerabend’s anarchism, or his view that a coherent theory of scientific change was impossible. Laudan proposed a ''reticulated model'' of scientific rationality in which other theories, methods, and research aims all interact in the assessment of a theory, with all three subject to alteration or replacement in the light of the others. Like Lakatos, he supposed that scientific theories were linked into logically related groups which he called ''research traditions'', and rejected the radical holism of Kuhnian paradigms. Laudan distinguished between the ''acceptance'' of a theory by a scientific community as the best available and ''pursuit'' of a theory as holding potential. Similar ideas were adopted as part of the Barseghyan theory of scientific change.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)]] | + | ===Larry Laudan=== |
| + | In his 1984 ''Science and Values'' philosopher [[Larry_Laudan|Larry Laudan]] accepted growing empirical evidence that the methods of science had changed with time.[[CiteRef::Grobler (1990)]] [[CiteRef::Laudan (1984)]] "Our views about the proper procedures for investigating the world", he wrote, "have been significantly affected by our shifting beliefs about how the world works".[[CiteRef::Laudan (1984)|p. 39]] However he did not accept Feyerabend’s anarchism, or his view that a coherent theory of scientific change was impossible. Laudan proposed a ''reticulated model'' of scientific rationality in which other theories, methods, and research aims all interact in the assessment of a theory, with all three subject to alteration or replacement in the light of the others. Like Lakatos, he supposed that scientific theories were linked into logically related groups which he called ''research traditions'', and rejected the radical holism of Kuhnian paradigms. Laudan distinguished between the ''acceptance'' of a theory by a scientific community as the best available and ''pursuit'' of a theory as holding potential. Similar ideas were adopted as part of the Barseghyan theory of scientific change.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)]] | ||
|History=The ''theory of scientific change'' (TSC) was proposed by Hakob Barseghyan in ''The Laws of Scientific Change'', published in 2015.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)]] | |History=The ''theory of scientific change'' (TSC) was proposed by Hakob Barseghyan in ''The Laws of Scientific Change'', published in 2015.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)]] | ||
In 2016, Zoe Sebastien resolved an important logical paradox, which necessitated a [[Modification:Sebastien-2016-001|change]] to the [[The_Third_Law|third law of scientific change]].[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]] At the same time, the definition of [[Theory|''theory'']] was also [[Modification:Sebastien-2016-002|modified]] to include not only descriptive propositions but also normative propositions (e.g. normative scientific methodologies, ethical beliefs, etc.). As a result, the scope of the TSC was expanded to include also normative beliefs accepted by a community. | In 2016, Zoe Sebastien resolved an important logical paradox, which necessitated a [[Modification:Sebastien-2016-001|change]] to the [[The_Third_Law|third law of scientific change]].[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]] At the same time, the definition of [[Theory|''theory'']] was also [[Modification:Sebastien-2016-002|modified]] to include not only descriptive propositions but also normative propositions (e.g. normative scientific methodologies, ethical beliefs, etc.). As a result, the scope of the TSC was expanded to include also normative beliefs accepted by a community. | ||
Revision as of 22:15, 2 September 2016
References
- a b Sady, Wojciech. (2016) Ludwik Fleck. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/fleck/.
- a b Fleck, Ludwik. (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. University of Chicago Press.
- a b Kuhn, Thomas. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Bird, Alexander. (2011) Thomas Kuhn. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/thomas-kuhn/.
- ^ Feyerabend, Paul. (1975) Against Method. New Left Books.
- ^ Lakatos, Imre. (1970) Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. In Lakatos (1978a), 8-101.
- ^ Grobler, Adam. (1990) Between Rationalism and Relativism: On Larry Laudan's Model of Scientific Rationality. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (4), 493-507.
- a b c d Laudan, Larry. (1984) Science and Values. University of California Press.
- a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.
- a b Sebastien, Zoe. (2016) The Status of Normative Propositions in the Theory of Scientific Change. Scientonomy 1, 1-9. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/26947.
- ^ Kuhn (1977)
