Lecture 8 Flashcards
(22 cards)
What do philosophers of science do?
- asking higher-level questions about science.
-Reflecting on assumptions made pre-experiments.
-Uncovering norms and values
-Questioning the methods
-exploring the limits of science
How do philosophers of science do what they do?
1- They don’t say what is correct or not instead they come up with criteria to decide.
2-They don’t rely on empirical evidence.
3-Instead of saying what is true or not they define what is it mean by true
Examples of philosophy of science?
1-Philosophy of physics
2- philosophy of chemistry
3-philosophy of biology
How does science help us to gain knowledge?
Through interferences
Interference
ways to come from premises to conclusions
1-Deduction
2-Induction
3-Abduction
Deduction
If the assumption is true the conclusion is also true.
-They provide proof in a strict sense
Example:
1. No human is ticklish
2. Julie is a human
C. Julie is not ticklish
Validity of deduction
The truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premise.
Soundness
The truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises and the premises are actually true.
Limitations of deduction
1-Hard to make sure that premises are true
2-mostly used in logic, mathematics, linguistics as the premises are accepted to be true.
Induction
The truth of the premises makes the conclusion likely. “informed guess”
-Weaker than deduction
Ex:
1. Mary lives in Scotland.
2. Everyone who lives in Scotland owns a raincoat
C. Mary owns a raincoat
Limitations of Induction
- Seeing 73738 white swans
- All swans are white
(what if there are swans who are not white?)
Uniformity of nature
-Based on past experiences we make interferences about a reference class. we propose that all instances in a category show similar features. The past is similar to future
Problem of induction
Just because a premise worked before in the past doesn’t mean it’ll remain the same in the future.
Abduction
Best explanation of an event.
-There is no direct way from premise to conclusion rather we elimnate the most unlikely options.
Example:
1. The cheese on the counter has disappeared
2. Hearing scratching noises during the night.
C. The cheese was eaten by a mouse
Difference between Inductive and Abductive inference
1-Abductive gives explanation
2-Inductive often relies on similar categories or comparison classes
3-Inductive relies on past, abductive doesn’t have to
Limitations of Abductive inferences?
1- What makes an explanation best?
Explanatory power, Parsimony, simplicity
2-What if there is more than one best explanation
what is the scientific method?
criterion to demarcate good science
1-Probabilistic inference (inductive)
2-Causal inference (adductive)
Probabilistic inference
We can never examine everyone, that is , the entire relevant population. That’s shy we use probability to estimate.
Limitations of Probabilistic inference?
-It tells us how likely our scientific hypothesis are but not the causal relationship
- Based on past experiences what if past experiences are wrong.
Causal inference
1-Finding causes for natural phenomena
Principle type + event type
(smoking) + (cancer)
Does smoking really cause cancer?
Correlation vs causation
What if there is a third variable smoking genes that actually causes cancer and not smoking itself?
The common cause problem ( spurious correlation)
there could be a third variable that produces the association.
