Loopholes in the Philosophy of Science

"Observe, experiment, record, repeat" doesn't make a whole lot of sense, unless we know how all those things are logically related and how they interact.

We can probably start by dividing scientific method into two issues: discovery and justification. Philosophy has been a lot better at describing the latter than the former. Some philosophers don't even try reduce discovery to a method.

Historically, the ideal of scientific method was a deductive axiomatic system. The paradigm for that was Euclid's geometry, I guess. But scientists make great use of induction, so axiomatic deduction isn't the whole story. The problem of induction has in turn led philosophers of science to question whether science produces certain knowledge, or merely likely knowledge.

Philosophers have argued about whether science produces causal and/or deterministic explanations. Others point to probabilistic theories in microphysics and elsewhere. There are arguments about whether clear predictive content is necessary, or whether after-the-fact explanation can work. Then there are the discussions of theoretical reduction and supervenience.

Is controlled experiment always required? What about astronomy or Darwin's observations in the Galapagos? Is there a general method to experiment, or is it more of an art? What's up with thought experiments? And what happens when observations contradict theory? Must theory immediately be rejected? (That rarely happens.) Or should we assume experimental errors? Or the effects of unforseen influences? Is there really any methodological algorithm that handles all that?

The use of analogies has generated lots of discussion. Philosophers of biology argue about the status of functional and teleological explanations and about how they fit into evolutionary theory. There are philosophical issues around classification, taxonomy and cladistics. Then there's bioinformatics and the information theoretical approaches to the genome.

And on and on it goes. The idea of a scientific method just keeps getting more and more complicated, the more carefully that philosophers observe what scientists are really doing out there. It seems that scientists don't always do the same thing over and over again.

 

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Not quite on the same level, but there is also the split between the realists and the instrumentalists, the latter not wanting theory to limit scientific research. IOW by building up a metaphysics supported empirically, since 'the way things really are' may cut off lines of research (and given that 'the way things really are' has changed over time in science itself.) This debate came to a real head between Mach and Planck, in the realism-instrumentalism debate.

 

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Yes. Until it was confirmed through experimentation and observation, it was an hypothesis.

Once confirmed, (i.e. the 1919 solar eclipse observations), it was a theory, which is as proven as you can get. And Every observation and experiment since 1905 has simply further confirmed (i.e. proven) Einstein's theory, to the point where it is considered a law of physics.

Please remember that in science, the word 'theory' does not mean wild ass guess.

 

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It was not treated as a hypothesis. And Einstein himself did not view scientific methodology to be restricted to what A said above, which is what I was responding to.

You must be confusing my posts with some other posts. Or you hallucinated while you read them.

 

Confirmation of equivalence principal

It is hard to justify something as simple as a figure, because in the end it relies entirely on the fact itself instead of the thinking that leads to reason behind this truth. Whatever interpretations we have created have solved problems in order to later create problems. Perhaps it would only be best to forget everything we think we know every once in a while to gain better insight into both truth and falsehood. The latter being much more persistent.