Sara Leanne Mastros
Intro to Philo of Science
April 1,
2001
Assignment #9 - Defend my previous opinion.
For the first assignment, which asked, "What is special about science? Why is it considered to have a privileged status? What criteria might we use to distinguish science from pseudo-science?" I wrote:
"Science is a system by which we gain the capacity for induction from observed data to generalized statements about the world. Scientific theories attempt to explain past events and predict new ones. So long as a theory can do that, it is acceptable, when it fails to explain or predict, the theory fails and needs must be reconsidered.
Science is considered to have special status (and this is only a very recent development) because the scientific community has built itself up into a priesthood of mystery. Modern science is tricky and difficult business, and the layman is taught that it is beyond his comprehension. In such a way, he comes to believe that it is a special sort of truth, understandable by only a select few, and then revealed from on high to the masses. In short, science has a privileged position because scientists keep it that way.
Moreover, I'm of the opinion that the pseudo-science vs. science distinction is a bad dichotomy. Rather, there is an analog continuum of science, from poorly done, to well done. "Pseudo-science" no matter what it might have originally meant, has now become a pejorative term used without distinction to classify field that we (scientists) do not wish to admit to our privileged position. It's a social distinction, and one given to rapid change.
David Goodstein (who was my physics advisor at Caltech when I was an undergrad) had this to say:
While I still hold to the body of what I said then, I am happy to elucidate and clarify, and to provide argument for my points. To begin a discussion of modern science, and her place in the greater scheme of human knowledge, it is necessary first to define what we mean by science. I will provide a number of such definitions, and argue for the extremely liberal functional/causal view I put forward before.
Definition One: "Ontological"
Science is that body of factual knowledge (both laws and initital
conditions) which, beginning from a hypothesis of explanatory adequacy,
allows us to both explain and predict observed physical events. The
assumption of the explanatory adequacy of physics (here formulated in the
style of David Lewis) contends that there is some body of laws from which,
given the initial conditions of a closed system, we can predict it's
future states. It also hypothesizes that the observable universe is such
a system."
Definition Two: "Epistemic"
Science is a set of statements about the world. These statements are
characterized epistemicly, that is, we know a sentence is part of science
by the way we come to know it. Science comes to be known by direct
experience. That is to say, it is aquied through gnosis, and epistemis,
rather than pistis or amnesis. (I know the Greek is pretentious, but we
do not have acceptable words in English. Gnosis is knowlege aqciured by
direct expericene, unfiltered by reason or pre-existing knowlege. Pistis
is knowlege aquired by faith. Someone told us, we believed them.
Epistemis is knowlege aquired by direct reason--a priori knowlege.
Amnesis is knowlege we have aquired by memory or instinct.)
Definiton Three: "Functional" Science is that set of law and parameters which allow us to reliable explian past events in terms of their physical causal roles, and to predict future event sin a similar fashion.
During the class, we seem to have taken a naive epistemic aproach, "Science is a posteriori knowlege aquired by a formal method of induction." I do not think this is a vaild defintion of science because it is overly conservative. Kepler claimed that his astronomical model was directly transmitted to him from God. However, I'm unwilling to say Kepler's Laws are not valid science, nor am i willing to say Kepler was a bad scientist.
The ontological definition, that science is a predicitve body of fact, i reject for subtle reasons which I cannot quickly summerize. As a mathematician I have obvious problems with the hypotheses, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with them here. Some thoughts on the matter may be found