Do clever people outsmart themselves?

[Dave Rogers]

I didn't say that I don't know how to handle ad hoc hypotheses. You must have misunderstood something I said.

It would be this:

So what makes the use of an ad hoc hypothesis legitimate? I confess that I am not clear about this.

Which suggests that you don't know in what circumstances ad hoc hypotheses are legitimate, and hence how they should be treated.

You cannot ask what philosophers have said "in addition to scientists" about ad hoc hypotheses because scientists have almost never explained ad hoc hypotheses outside the framework of philosophy. Therefore, what is said about ad hoc hypotheses has been said mainly by philosophers or scientist-philosophers.

Well, quite. In my over thirty years as a scientist, I've never actually had to consider the problem of what constitutes an as hoc hypothesis and what doesn't; I've simply applied the normal rules of the scientific method. It seems to me that the problem of ad hoc hypotheses is identified, defined and solved by philosophers in isolation while, for the most part, scientists just get on with doing science.

It seems to me that what you don't understand is that standard science works with particular rules.

No doubt you understand these things far better than I, a scientist for most of my life, ever possibly can.

Dave

 

[Robin]

It seems to me a thesis hard to maintain from the moment that modern science lays the foundations of its method, that is to say the hypothetical-deductive method.

What could be said is that the philosophy of science is an indecisive ground in which both philosophers and scientists participate.
Not only Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg or Hawking enter into questions traditionally dealt with by philosophers, but authors considered as philosophers of science, such as Popper, Lakatos, Russell, Bunge, etc. are also scientists. Even a metaphysician like Husserl, which is rather surprising.

But the questions of philosophy of science are not settled by the hypothetical deductive method, so it can hardly be said that they are science (in the sense of the sciences that deal with nature).

Which is why I asked the question of the others as to what they consider science. Is science only making hypotheses and testing them?

Or is science an attempt to discover what there is, what we can know and how we can know it?

 

[Susheel]

Which is why I asked the question of the others as to what they consider science. Is science only making hypotheses and testing them?

Or is science an attempt to discover what there is, what we can know and how we can know it?

I don't think that distinction is valid. The two complement each other and feeds into and off each other.

 

[Chanakya]

@David Mo,

This is going nowhere, perhaps we'd best let it go.

I'm glad you raised the subjects of the philosophy of science as well as ad hoc hypotheses. These are not subjects I'm likely to have given any thought to otherwise. And you're right, the best way for me to understand this is to actually read up on this. I was hoping to simply have you share your own understanding clearly with me, but that shortcut is clearly not happening any time soon.

Oh, and yes, I see we do agree on one thing, that the philosophy of science isn't part of the scientific method. That much at least!

Some other discussion, some other topic, some other time, we'll catch up again. Peace!

 

[Chanakya]

@Robin,

I'd asked you to not worry about the PC thing to set you at ease, not to set you off.

And I'd pointed out your specific strawman, and generally referred to the irrelevancies you were bringing in, only to get our discussion focused on the specific portion I was interested in. I agree, the terms I used to express some of this were unnecessarily dismissive, for which my apologies.

And no, there is no shifting of goalposts here, not in what I've said. Others may have asked others things of you, but my comments to you were focused on two things, both basis your own comments here. (Or at least, I started with one question, and expanded that to two as it seemed relevant -- the second is a separate question, not a shifting of goalposts as far as the first.).

I'll repeat my two questions:
(a)In what way is the philosophy of science simply a part of the scientific method?
(b) Can you point to any actual instance, in recent times, where the philosophy of science has led to the formulation and/or the acceptance (or rejection) of some hypothesis, in a way that wouldn't have been possible without bringing in philosophy of science? Some concrete example of the utility of the philosophy of science, not just general opinions of individual scientists?

(And yes, I do realize that you didn't really claim this utility directly yourself, you only pointed to others expressing that opinion. So it's perfectly fine if you don't wish to get on to the second question.)

 

[Robin]

@Robin,

I'd asked you to not worry about the PC thing to set you at ease, not to set you off.

What are you talking about? I haven't even read where you talk about the PC stuff and have certainly not referred to anything you have said about it, never mind been 'set off' by it.

And I'd pointed out your specific strawman

I am not aware of any straw man from my side. As far as I am aware all the straw men have been from the anti philosophy crowd.

I can tell you from experience that when I agreed with Carlo Rovelli that Aristotle's physics could be regarded as a rational physics for its time I was flooded with no end of uninformed sneering. It is not a straw man to be wary of attracting those people back. Perhaps you should go and look the term up.

And no, there is no shifting of goalposts here, not in what I've said.

You added more to your question. That is what I meant.

 

[Robin]

@Chanakya

Oh and what about my question in return, for you (and others if they can) to clarify what you mean by science, when it started and what is its scope. That would help avoid talking at cross purposes.

 

[Robin]

So the question is - when Einstein uses a thought experiment about some exploded/unexploded gunpowder to ask if quantum physics can be thought of as a true description of reality or just a calculus that lets us predict things - was he still doing science? Or had he stopped doing science and was doing something else?

Same question about when Planck defended realism with respect to quantum physics?

Or when Galileo wrote about the nature of science?

When Mayr wrote about the nature of causality and what it says about the different strands of biology and even using these ideas to call into question the validity of some strands of biology, was he doing science or had he stopped doing science and was doing something else?

Or when other biologists defended their area of biology against these arguments, were they doing science?

My point is that if these 'meta' activities affected how a theory developed or what kinds of studies would be done or what sort of hypotheses could be developed, then it would be absurd to say that this was not also the business of science.

Not everyone agrees with that, I know. Biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci wished to use the term 'scientia' to describe the wider activities such as I have mentioned there, but I haven't seen it catch on.

 

[Robin]

The concrete example, I will do tomorrow. I will use the series of experiments performed by Kevin Laland and described in his book "Darwin's Unfinished Symphony" showing how they depend on assumptions about causality in biology which have been called into question by other biologists and how these assumptions had to be defended and how this affects the design/conduct of the experiments.

 

[Chanakya]

What are you talking about? I haven't even read where you talk about the PC stuff and have certainly not referred to anything you have said about it, never mind been 'set off' by it.

I am not aware of any straw man from my side. As far as I am aware all the straw men have been from the anti philosophy crowd.

I can tell you from experience that when I agreed with Carlo Rovelli that Aristotle's physics could be regarded as a rational physics for its time I was flooded with no end of uninformed sneering. It is not a straw man to be wary of attracting those people back. Perhaps you should go and look the term up.

You added more to your question. That is what I meant.

See my post #472.

And incidentally, adding a separate question isn't what moving goalposts refers to. I'd made it quite clear that I was making an additional point and asking an additional question, at the point when I did ask it.

And I don't see myself as an anti-philosophy type. (Nor, for that matter, a come-what-may pro-philosophy type either.) Any beef you might have with others is between them and you. You were addressing me, so naturally I thought you were referring to me.
Any case, all that's in the past now, and not really relevant, so...

@Chanakya

Oh and what about my question in return, for you (and others if they can) to clarify what you mean by science, when it started and what is its scope. That would help avoid talking at cross purposes.

I'm the exact opposite of an expert, but since you ask:

I'd say science is following the scientific method. Just that.

While the scientific method was formulated in the last few centuries and more or less brought to the form that we know in the last century or so -- this is off the cuff, unreferenced, and the details could be wrong, very wrong -- but I guess we know of the ancients "doing science" well before Christ, not just in Greece but elsewhere as well.

It's scope? I'd either have to think it through and look it up as well, or else not look it up and probably make a fool of myself! Since you ask, I guess -- and entirely off the cuff -- what science does is let us understand the world, one observation (or set of observations) at a time. That's about it, I guess.

 

[Chanakya]

@Robin,

Those individual cases you mention, I'll have to look them up. You only cursorily mention them, which is fine, but I'm not really conversant with what they're about, really.

Stuff like Einstein's thought experiments and suchlike, I don't know, they'd probably qualify as "philosophy" only if we're using that term very loosely. Hell, we could herd a bunch of scientists together and get them to do some of the "brainstorming" crap we pull off in our consultancy gigs, and call that "philosophy" as well. Or you could think of getting ideas from mythology, and fantasy and sci fi as well. All that would be what is called ideating. Would you say that's philosophy, or part of the scientific method per se, except very loosely?

Anyway, you've put out some leads. I guess it's up to me to look them up, when I can. For now I'm not able to comment (at least not meaningfully ).



You know, you seem to be thinking this through, rather than discussing what you already actually know. Which is fine, which is great, which is terrific, but perhaps someone better versed in all this would be better suited as a sounding board than I am! Perhaps one of our resident science-pro types, who can match you step for step without having to laboriously look up every single case that you mention.

Anyway, thanks for taking the effort! You go ahead and put up your post about those Laland experiments when you can. And I'll check out those cases you mention when I can -- laboriously, through moving lips! --- and then get back to you on this.

 

[Robin]

Stuff like Einstein's thought experiments and suchlike, I don't know, they'd probably qualify as "philosophy" only if we're using that term very loosely.

Einstein was asking if one of the two most important theories of physics was really telling us about reality, about what there really is.

He was asking about what there is and how we can know. In other words he was asking questions of ontology and epistemology.

If that is not the subject matter of philosophy then I don't know what is.

And we know that Einstein would have known this too, after all he discussed these matters with Moritz Schlick, one of the central philosophers of science at the time.

So no, not using the term "philosophy" loosely, using the term "philosophy" very strictly.

 

[Myriad]

So would a question like "Does quantum mechanics actually describe reality, or is it just a mathematical model that works?" be a Philosophy of Science question?

If so, what's the answer according to the Philosophy of Science?

 

[Robin]

I would say that the arc of science stretches back millennia, probably before history records.

I think we do a disservice to Archimedes, for example, to say that he wasn't a scientist or that he was not part of the development of the scientific method.

 

[Robin]

So would a question like "Does quantum mechanics actually describe reality, or is it just a mathematical model that works?" be a Philosophy of Science question?

If so, what's the answer according to the Philosophy of Science?

I would not like to speak for the physics community, but the consensus seems to be "it actually describes reality ". There are exceptions,for example Stephen Hawking always maintained the old Positivist position that the question was meaningless and that as long as the predictions of the mathematical model correctly described the observations then the theory was correct.

The question now seems to be "what kind of reality is it describing?".

 

[Robin]

I would say that the arc of science stretches back millennia, probably before history records.

I think we do a disservice to Archimedes, for example, to say that he wasn't a scientist or that he was not part of the development of the scientific method.

I don't know if Democritus could be described as a scientist, but I know that his atomic theory was more than just a lucky guess (as some have said).

He made inferences about how his theory described observed phenomena, for example he described buoyancy as the cumulative effect of the particles underneath pushing up which seems a pretty good hypothesis for 3,000 years ago, certainly better than Aristotle's later idea of objects having absolute levity.

We can hardly blame him if he had no idea how to test this idea out or even if he never hit on the concept of testing an idea.

Since we only have fragments of his original work and second hand accounts of some of the rest, we will never know if he guessed why the particles underneath pushed up more than the particles above pushed down.

But I would definitely count him as part of the arc of science.

 

[Chanakya]

You're right, what Einstein was doing is philosophizing. What Myriad asks, although his question is probably rhetorical, is basically philosophy as well.

But but but

I don't know how that particular conversation went. But you do, so perhaps you can tell me. Einstein had worked out a ground-breaking discovery. He was trying to understand its implications. What was the contribution, exactly, of that "central philosopher of science" to the conversation, or to Einstein's actual work? That is the question, isn't it?

No one suggests that Einstein shouldn't ever philosophize about his work, or for that matter compose bawdy limericks about it. And no doubt he had deep conversations with all kinds of people, like those he'd been bedding, and his drinking buddies, and his philosopher friends as well. What does that show

I still don't see what philosophy of science has contributed here to science -- instead, I see science providing fodder to philosophy to chew on.

You get me, right? Show me how this Schlick person actually aided Einstein's actual work, and you'll have made your point.

 

[Chanakya]

As for the "arc of science" going back millenia, no one has suggested otherwise. I said that exact same thing myself, in answer to your question. How is that relevant here, at all?

 

[Robin]

As for the "arc of science" going back millenia, no one has suggested otherwise. I said that exact same thing myself, in answer to your question. How is that relevant here, at all?

In response to the suggestion that the it is only centuries old.

 

[Robin]

You're right, what Einstein was doing is philosophizing. What Myriad asks, although his question is probably rhetorical, is basically philosophy as well.

I think that if you are going to suggest that the debate in QM (still going on and still relevant to the kinds of research being done) to which I was referring had no more impact the course of science than philosophising on bawdy limericks then we are probably done here.

It is well known that this debate was about the future course of research in physics, not a side hobby.

Science isn't just about following a procedure and getting published, most scientists actually care whether or not their research is telling us something about the real world.