The "Stage Theory of Theories" - Cause for Concern?

[axocanth]

Facts? Of course we construct them. Reality is a whole. Facts are lean, carefully sculpted propositions (employing language and math) about particular parts of that whole. Well, except for Doug Adams "42."

Just for general interest, and not particularly relevant to the OP, sociologists had long studied "primitive" cultures, perhaps in places such as highland New Guinea or downtown Glasgow, among other things trying to determine the social forces which cause the tribal headhunters to generate the beliefs/knowledge (the sociology of knowledge typically draws no distinction between the two) that they hold to be the case. You know, things like how they came to believe that the cosmos consists of a giant cockroach perched atop a giant tortoise, creation accounts, and so on.

I believe it was around the 1970s or so that sociologists -- e.g. the "Strong Programme" of Edinburgh -- turned their attention to the sociology of scientific knowledge, applying the same techniques as they did in darkest New Guinea. Scientists have their own creation account too, of course, not to mention stories about things that no one has ever seen such as quarks. Indeed, these accounts are widely believed to be true. Things like this piqued the attention of the sociologists who wanted to discern the forces responsible for scientists coming to hold such beliefs and announcing such facts to the world.

As you can imagine, things got very heated very quickly indeed. Scientists, by and large, do not see their beliefs and their facts as on a par with those of New Guinea tribal warriors. They'll happily accept that New Guinea creation accounts are produced entirely by social forces, but not theirs. They believe what they do because rationality compels it. They do not construct or invent facts driven by social forces of which they are unaware; they discover facts. They believe what they do because, a few missteps along the way acknowledged, that's the way the world is!

Some readers may recall the "Science Wars" of the 1990s, thankfully a lot quieter now. Targets of outraged scientists included postmodernists (remember them?), maverick rascals such as Paul Feyerabend, and not least social constructivists. Classics in the latter genre include "Constructing Quarks" (the title speaks for itself), "Leviathan and the Air Pump", and perhaps most notorious of all, "Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts" by Latour and Woolgar.


Read more about Latour here . . . if you dare!

Bruno Latour | Biography & Facts

Bruno Latour, French sociologist and anthropologist known for his innovative and iconoclastic work in the study of science and technology in society. He often likened the scientific community to a battlefield. Learn more about Latour’s life and career, including his various books.

www.britannica.com

"Latour and Woolgar’s account broke away from the positivist view of scientific inquiry as a rational and largely asocial process capable of uncovering universally valid truths regarding the natural world. They instead presented scientific knowledge as an artificial product of various social, political, and economic interactions, most of them competitive. [ . . . ]

In his writings, Latour often likened the scientific community to a battlefield: new theories, facts, techniques, and technologies succeeded by marshalling enough users and supporters to overwhelm any alternatives, thus immunizing themselves against future challenges. It was by winning this fight for dominance that scientific facts came to be true; Latour dismissed questions about the universal validity of scientific facts as both unanswerable and irrelevant to his concerns. This insistence on seeing scientific facts as purely social constructions sometimes led Latour to conclusions that were seen as absurd outside the community of social theorists. In 1998, for example, Latour rejected as anachronistic the recent discovery that the pharaoh Ramses II had died of tuberculosis, asserting that the tubercle bacillus was discovered [cf. constructed - axo] only in 1882 and could not properly be said to have existed before then. [ . . . ]

Latour’s work exasperated many practicing scientists with its denial of the existence of objective truths and its claims to have unmasked science as a social process and debunked its pretenses of rationality. However, his work was welcomed by many social scientists for its fresh and innovative approach to the study of science."



Make of it what you will, though I doubt too many readers around here will be sympathetic to the position that science constructs facts. And don't shoot me, I'm just the pizza delivery boy.

 

[foghorn]

Make of it what you will, though I doubt too many readers around here will be sympathetic to the position that science constructs facts. And don't shoot me, I'm just the pizza delivery boy.

What is a hypothesis? what is a theory? What is a fact?
What does ‘mean’ mean?

Meanwhile science goes on modelling Nature via the scientific method.
Don’t shoot me, I’m just the waffle boy.

 

[TheVat]

You are aware, of course, of the so-called "correspondence theory of truth". On this view, a proposition is true insofar as it corresponds with the facts. The proposition (our creation) "The Earth is round", say, is true if and only if it is a fact (none of our doing) that the Earth is round(ish). Facts of the world -- or states of affairs out there in reality, if you prefer, which are not of our making -- decide whether assertions we make about these states of affairs are true or not.

Frank Sinatra's (tempestuous!) marriage to Ava Gardner was a fact constructed by ourselves. So is every other marriage. There was no fact of marriage between dinosaurs inasmuch as they lacked the cognitive and linguistic resources to create such facts. Or so we shall assume until they start digging up T-rex prenups.

But is it really your position that the sphericity of the Earth is not only a fact, but a fact that we have created?

I meant something a bit different, viz that facts as propositions about the world only exist when a sentient being can employ language to make such propositions. If we take fact to mean the state of affairs itself then of course they exist quite independently of us. Really I was only drawing a distinction between the limited domain and high specificity of facts-as-statements-about and the uninterrupted whole that is reality in its own ontological glory (for Kant, the noumenon).

I take your point about facts which are merely agreements on what to call things. If Bob and Carol trade rings, hear some words from a minister, and agree to honor certain documents, then they are said to be married. Facts-as-agreements are just promises of cooperation between humans. (roughly - I realize we can drill far deeper on this sort of factuality)

But I don't see the world "deciding" anything. Rather our perceptions (and augmented perceptions, which we sometimes call measurements) of the world, and whatever consistency they offer, is the deciding factor in what propositions were are emboldened to make. The world, independent of our perceptual framework, seems to be silent, if that makes sense. It's not quite how I want to put that, but we are all besotted by the Vat family's newest member, Louise, and some sleep lost last night trying not to roll over in bed and crush her. (Those familiar with Vlad or Diana, other familials I may have mentioned elsewhere, will have an advantage guessing the species, i.e. the bundle of observations we have assembled into facts and taxonomies of extreme cute things)

 

[axocanth]

What is a hypothesis? what is a theory? What is a fact?
What does ‘mean’ mean?

Meanwhile science goes on modelling Nature via the scientific method.
Don’t shoot me, I’m just the waffle boy.

No, it doesn't. The Scientific Method (TSM) is just another myth -- or so I'll argue -- that you, and millions of others, have been fed by incompetent science educators, the same kind of people that spin yarns about certain terms having very different meanings in science, à la STOT, implying that all scientific theories are probably true. And if incompetence doesn't explain it, something more insidious does, viz., you have been deliberately misled. They might as well be telling you about Santa Claus; the evidence supporting the existence of TSM is no more compelling. And what's most appalling about all this is perhaps that this kind of pernicious nonsense being propagated on a massive scale is evidently accepted obediently and uncritically by the section of society (i.e., the scientifically inclined) who are supposed to represent a paradigm of critical thinking.

Perhaps only fifty years ago it was still somewhat scandalous to assert, as Paul Feyerabend did, that there is no such thing as TSM. These days, it's not particularly rare to hear a few savvy scientists say the same thing I'm saying now: there's no such thing. I'll quote some if you like.

It's possible of course that I'm wrong on this, and that both Santa Claus and The Scientific Method are a reality. The trouble is, though, the abovementioned science educators never offer even the slightest hint that what they're teaching to a suggestible audience is even remotely controversial or disputed. As noted above, whether this is a result of sheer, abject ignorance or something more insidious is something I'll leave the reader to appraise for herself.



Funnily enough, a similar thing happened yesterday. In another thread here I noticed other members admonishing their ID adversaries that macroevolution is nothing but microevolution writ large, and that the distinction is a spurious one, drawn only by Creationists. It's a common enough mantra alright; I see and hear it repeated all over the place. It may even be true that macro- is nothing but micro-evolution writ large. The problem is, once again, that plenty of distinguished science do not think so. A controversial issue is presented as if it is entirely uncontroversial; a united stand presented where none exists.

Once again, I'll leave the reader to speculate on the reasons for this. But I will say this: the Youtube gods of science education -- Forrest Valkai, Professor Dave, and AronRa -- say it all the time.

 

[axocanth]

It's not quite how I want to put that, but we are all besotted by the Vat family's newest member, Louise, and some sleep lost last night trying not to roll over in bed and crush her. (Those familiar with Vlad or Diana, other familials I may have mentioned elsewhere, will have an advantage guessing the species, i.e. the bundle of observations we have assembled into facts and taxonomies of extreme cute things)

We ailurophiles never forget.

 

[axocanth]

Not all science educators are cut from the same cloth. One shouldn't rush to generalise or stereotype.

Do you agree?

I immediately and wholeheartedly agreed with James. Meanwhile . . .

What is a hypothesis? what is a theory? What is a fact?
What does ‘mean’ mean?

Meanwhile science goes on modelling Nature via the scientific method.
Don’t shoot me, I’m just the waffle boy.

Throughout this thread I've pointed the finger quite sternly -- deservedly so I feel -- at incompetent science educators such as high profile scientists themselves (Dawkins, Krauss, Coyne, deGrasse Tyson) as well as the Youtube pantheon of smug, sneering clowns (Forrest Valkai, Professor Dave, AronRa). The industrial scale dissemination of misinformation and manifest absurdities -- amazingly, almost never challenged -- is surely not something to be condoned. Science does not have to be grotesquely exaggerated and misrepresented; its merits are not in doubt. Moreover, if or when the public realize they have been grossly misled, the victim is likely to be science itself; trust will diminish Hopefully all present can agree on at least this much.


So much for the bad guys. Three cheers now for Stuart Firestein. I dunno much about the fella myself, but the cover of his short book "Failure" says this:

Firestein is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University and serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding of Science.


I quote below from pages 119-123 . . .


"I decried [in my book "Ignorance"] the Scientific Method as a comical concept that no real scientist ever really practices and is taught only to schoolkids, presumably to make science look as uncreative as possible. [ . . . ]

Even if we accept the Scientific Method as some sort of general description of how science is meant to proceed, it is of little practical help. The steps are as follows: (1) observe; (2) form a hypothesis; (3) design an experiment that manipulates the hypothesized cause and observe the new result; (4) update the hypothesis based on the results, and design new experiments [ . . . ] This all sounds good, except that no scientist that I know of actually follows this prescription. [ . . . ]

On the other hand, the most critical step in the whole cycle, the one that requires a magic brew of creativity, thought, inspiration, intuition, rationality, past knowledge, and new thinking--this the Scientific "Method" has nothing to say about. "Form a hypothesis." Very good. How, precisely, does one do that? [ . . . ] This is like giving an art student a brush and the direction "do painting". [ . . . ]

So in the end the Scientific Method is more dangerous than just being a quaint approximation of what scientists do--it has that unfortunate trait of seeming to say something when it really says nothing. The result of those sorts of formulations is that everyone is satisfied with the state of things--it's been explained, it gets into the textbooks, it's what students learn and can be tested on--but it's not true or correct or even approximately so. It's a calamity, this "Method."

What should it be replaced with?

The first option to consider is "Nothing. "It doesn't need to be replaced because it, the Scientific Method, wasn't really there in the first place."

UNQUOTE



I could add an awful lot more to the above, but note just for now what Firestein says about creativity -- perhaps the polar opposite of method. Proponents of The Scientific Method would have us believe that scientists slavishly adhere to some cookbook-like formula for generating knowledge. Just follow the steps and voila! -- any idiot can do it, kind of thing.

If it were than simple, one wonders why we'd need geniuses like Newton and Einstein. Just land Joe Sixpack in Europe circa 1904, apprise him of the relevant facts, and by following the steps of the Scientific Method special relativity is the result. Or so it is implied.

Clearly, not any idiot can do it.

People like myself who deny the existence of a timeless, unchanging Method of science are often accused of impertinence. I'd suggest precisely the reverse obtains.

 

[axocanth]

But I don't see the world "deciding" anything. Rather our perceptions (and augmented perceptions, which we sometimes call measurements) of the world, and whatever consistency they offer, is the deciding factor in what propositions were are emboldened to make. The world, independent of our perceptual framework, seems to be silent, if that makes sense. It's not quite how I want to put that . . .

Would you want to put it something like John Searle puts it between 6:15 - 8:00 ?

This is the point that eludes Dave, I suspect. He posted an image for us with . . . um . . . stuff in it (see post 203) and declares "We have found atoms; we can't unfind them." (post 201).

Oh yes you can! Now, I've no doubt that 1000 years from now, if people use the same equipment, the image produced will be the same. That's not gonna change.

What may change, however, is the way the image is understood or interpreted. If our conceptual-theoretical apparatus changes, then what we report seeing might change, indeed our descendants may say "There's no such thing as atoms, just as there is no such thing as witches, even though primitive people used to think they were literally seeing such things, and would report seeing such things."

Jonah not only saw a giant fish, but was swallowed up by one (or so we shall assume for illustration). How real can you get! Try unfinding that, sucker!

A seafaring Vat need have no fear of being swallowed by a 30-meter fish. We now believe there is no such thing. He could still get swallowed though by a 30-meter something though . . .

For the third time, "It is the theory that decides what is observed" - Einstein

 

[axocanth]

What is a hypothesis? what is a theory? What is a fact?
What does ‘mean’ mean?

Meanwhile science goes on modelling Nature via the scientific method.
Don’t shoot me, I’m just the waffle boy.

I'm not quite sure what foghorn is trying to convey here, but I will briefly add this. There have been hints here and there throughout the thread to the effect, "Axocanth, why don't you give the philosophical bs a rest? No one cares about this semantic pedantry. So what if scientists talk loosely or sloppily sometimes. Just STFU and let them get on with their work."

If that's how any reader feels then he or she has completely misunderstood what is going on here. I feel exactly the the same way! - except for the bit about "loose talk" or "sloppy usage" which is already symptomatic of STOT infection. Only a person already infected with STOT bs would come to the manifestly absurd conclusion that Einstein, Darwin, et al are "talking sloppily".

The situation can be summarized thus:

* Everyone -- including scientists themselves -- was getting along just fine, using words like "theory" and "hypothesis" perfectly naturally. The words were sometimes used interchangeably, as words which have a certain overlap in meaning often are. No one was doing anything wrong, sloppy, or inappropriate.

* Then some folks (the STOT brigade) decided to interfere with the natural workings of language, imposing definitions which do not correspond with actual usage.

* The result is not only chaos, but unforeseen consequences such as absurd implications (e.g., all scientific theories are probably true), which grossly mislead the public.

* I almost feel sorry for people like Douglas Futuyma (see post 211). He has been set an impossible task. On the one hand, he explicitly endorses STOT definitions. That's how scientists use the words, we are told. Then he proceeds valiantly to provide his readers with a coherent account of how these definitions apply to the field of evolutionary biology. Given the definitions he endorses, it is not possible to do this without contradiction. Darwin, for example, did not use the words that way.


Moral: Hey teacher, leave them scientists alone!

 

[foghorn]

No, it doesn't. The Scientific Method (TSM) is just another myth -- or so I'll argue --

Are you saying The Scientific Method (TSM) in itself is a myth, and doesn't act as a sieve for building models of Nature?

implying that all scientific theories are probably true.

Are models suppose to be ‘true’? Are you trying to bring philosophy into this?

 

[axocanth]

Are you saying The Scientific Method (TSM) in itself is a myth, and doesn't act as a sieve for building models of Nature?

I'm saying there is no such thing. There is no overarching Method used only by scientists in all times and all places, uniting all the various scientific disciplines, and demarcating them from non-science. Yes, you'll find a Wiki page on TSM, and you'll find it in textbooks. You'll no doubt find a Wiki page on God and Bigfoot too.

Thinkers, including both scientists and philosophers, have been arguing over TSM for centuries. To this day there is little agreement on what it is. As we've seen, some (e.g. Karl Popper) think TSM is essentially deductive in nature; others think it is essentially inductive. Newton thinks theories can be derived from the phenomena; Einstein does not.

One might sensibly conclude, then, that either (i) give them a few more centuries and perhaps they'll not only reach a consensus, but a consensus that maps on to actual scientific practice, or (ii) we're on a wild goose chase: science is far too heterogeneous and protean to be captured in a single Method.

Are models suppose to be ‘true’? Are you trying to bring philosophy into this?

Ask around! As we've seen here, some scientists think the terms "true" and "false" apply to scientific theories/models; others do not. Among the former, some feel scientific theories not only have a truth value (T/F) but also that this truth value -- in some cases at least -- can be known. Others do not.

Bringing philosophy into it? How else do you suggest we determine whether or not there exists an overarching Method of science? Point our telescopes at the heavens or mix chemicals together in the lab?

 

[axocanth]

On pages 14-15 of "Why Evolution is True", immediately after quoting Ronald Reagan saying that evolution is only a theory . . .

"The key word in this quote is "only." a theory. The implication is that there is something not quite right about a theory--that it is a mere speculation, and very likely wrong. Indeed, the everyday connotation of "theory" is "guess" as in, "My theory is that Fred is crazy about Sue." But in science the word "theory" means something completely different, conveying far more assurance and rigor than the notion of a simple guess."

Out of curiosity, I just picked up Coyne's book from the library again. It's much worse than we thought! Both quotes below are from page 16 (emphasis in original).


"Because a theory is accepted as "true" only when its assertions and predictions are tested over and over again, and confirmed repeatedly, there is no one moment when a scientific theory suddenly becomes a scientific fact. A theory becomes a fact (or a "truth") when so much evidence has accumulated in its favor -- and there is no decisive evidence against it -- that virtually all reasonable people will accept it. This does not mean that a "true" theory will never be falsified. All scientific truth is provisional, subject to modification in light of new evidence. [ . . . ] "



Note 1: Coyne is once again speaking the language of social constructivism: scientific investigation does not discover facts; it creates facts (and "truths"). Something that was not previously a fact or a truth becomes a fact/truth as a result of scientific inquiry.

Note 2: Why the words true and truth have inverted commas around them in some instances and not others is not explained.

Note 3: A scientific truth (or "truth") may not be true. There is always a possibility in science that a truth will subsequently be shown to be false. Same goes for facts: A scientific fact may not, in fact, be a fact.



With the exception of the first sentence in the passage quoted above, this is no perfectly reasonable assertion of the fallibility of scientific knowledge claims (i.e. Scientists, like everyone else, are sometimes wrong; sometimes they believe or assert something to be a fact or a truth when it is not.) If that's all Coyne was saying, there would be nothing to object to.

But Coyne goes much further, ushering us all once again into cloud cuckoo land. When certain conditions are satisfied (e.g. lots of evidence) a scientific theory is not merely taken to be, or believed to be, or asserted to be a fact or a truth; it is a scientific fact/truth -- even if it is not true!


On reading this we might conclude one of two things:

(i) Coyne is right, and we take everything he says at face value. Science is the only place under the sun where facts are not necessarily facts, and truths are not necessarily true. Whether lemurs are necessarily lemurs in science, Coyne does not say. Or . . .

(ii) Coyne is hopelessly confused. Coyne has as much right to be educating people on these things as I have to be educating people on organic chemistry, namely, neither of us should be allowed within a hundred miles of a blackboard. Coyne is making elementary -- and appalling -- errors between semantic and epistemic issues. I'd also note that he's far from alone. These ludicrous definitions are commonly propagated, all the way from the ivory towers, to the Youtube gods, to the grass roots far below. No wonder everyone is confused!




Coyne next turns his attention to scientific theories again . . .

"In the process of becoming truths, or facts, scientific theories are usually tested against alternative theories. After all, there are usually several explanations for a given phenomenon."


In the quote at the top Coyne tells us that a scientific theory is nothing like an everyday theory, such as Fred being head over heels about Sue. A scientific theory not only means something completely different, but carries far more "assurance".

Now if, as Coyne asserts, there are several explanatory theories jostling for attention and all making incompatible claims with one another -- a common enough occurrence in science (theories of QM, theories of consciousness, etc.) -- it is not logically possible that they can all be right. Simple logic stipulates that at most one of them is right, and that's already to take an uncommonly sanguine view of matters. The correct or true theory/explanation quite possibly has not been thought of (yet).

The vast majority of these rival theories, then-- if not all of them -- then, must be false. Logic alone demands this.

What kind of "assurance" this is supposed to bring us is left as an exercise to the reader.

 

[axocanth]

A couple of minor corrections first:

Note 1: Coyne is once again speaking the language of social constructivism: scientific investigation does not discover facts; it creates facts (and "truths"). Something that was not previously a fact or a truth becomes a fact/truth as a result of scientific inquiry.

I should have said: "Coyne, following Douglas Futuyma (see post 211), is speaking the language of social constructivism."

Second correction: Futuyma's definitive textbook "Evolution", second edition, which I quoted from earlier, is not co-authored by Mark Kirkpatrick (though later editions are).


Speaking of social constructivism, I quoted in post 221 the social constructivist par excellence Bruno Latour. A reminder . . .

This insistence on seeing scientific facts as purely social constructions sometimes led Latour to conclusions that were seen as absurd outside the community of social theorists. In 1998, for example, Latour rejected as anachronistic the recent discovery that the pharaoh Ramses II had died of tuberculosis, asserting that the tubercle bacillus was discovered [cf. constructed - axo] only in 1882 and could not properly be said to have existed before then. [ . . . ]

I can almost hear readers howling . . . "Tuberculosis didn't exist before 1882? The fact or truth of tuberculosis was constructed at that time? WTF!!! You wouldn't hear a hard-nosed scientist talking crap like that! What kind of lunatic would say such a crazy thing?"

What kind of lunatic would say such a thing? Well, Douglas Futuyma and Jerry Coyne, just to name two (not to mention the Youtube gods).


Let's take the proposition that all life on earth is descended from one or a few common ancestors as our example. Call this "Common Descent".

Both Coyne and Futuyma explicitly tell their readers, in their respectively confused ways, that as evidence amounts to an overwhelming degree, that which was previously a hypothesis or a theory becomes a fact or a truth, at least if you're speaking the language of science as taught by themselves. This doesn't happen instantaneously, of course, Coyne assures his readers; it's a gradual process. For simplicity, though, let's assume that Common Descent attained this status around 1940.

Still speaking the Coyne-Futuyma language of science, it immediately follows, then, that prior to 1940, the proposition "All life on earth is descended from one or a few common ancestors" was not true, and common descent was not a fact.

Remember, a truth or a fact in science -- if you believe Messrs. Coyne and Futuyma at least -- refers only to that which is supported by piles of evidence. Oh, and it needn't actually be true or a fact, as sane people use these terms.

Cause for concern? You tell me.



One can only wonder how the scientists here would react if the religious were to claim the same for themselves . . . "Well, you see, the words "fact" and "truth" have a technical meaning in the domain of religion. Our truths don't have to be true, and . . . "

Laugh, I suppose.

 

[axocanth]

edit butchery (Can a mod remove this please?)

 

[foghorn]

I'm saying there is no such thing. There is no overarching Method used only by scientists in all times and all places, uniting all the various scientific disciplines, and demarcating them from non-science. Yes, you'll find a Wiki page on TSM, and you'll find it in textbooks. You'll no doubt find a Wiki page on God and Bigfoot too.

How would you describe the process from Einstein’s Relativity on paper to the actual detection of Gravitational waves?
The same for the Higgs Boson, from paper to discovery?
Newton was probably not aware his first observation was made as a child, things fall.

Ask around! As we've seen here, some scientists think the terms "true" and "false" apply to scientific theories/models; others do not. Among the former, some feel scientific theories not only have a truth value (T/F) but also that this truth value -- in some cases at least -- can be known. Others do not.

Take Gravitational waves (GW), I would say it’s ‘true’ mass and accelerated motion are responsible for GW according to the model. If someone comes along and shows otherwise, then it’s time for a new model. Notice, my ’true’ was dependent on model.
I think this is how scientist would use ‘true’. I’m not ‘alarmed’ by the use of the word in that context.

 

[TheVat]

Would you want to put it something like John Searle puts it between 6:15 - 8:00 ?

Yes, that works, TY.

Would have responded sooner, but the chaos factor has gone up even further in the Vat dwelling, with now a houseguest in addition to the new kitten, and our neighbor/friend now in some hideous limbo of eternal labor (contractions, but no water breaking, and the MDs are trying to expand this strange liminal space so her girl won't be quite so premature).

Anywa;y, I think Coyne does stumble around some. What matters is that science sharpen the understanding that theories are often uneven agglomerations of hypotheses, accumulating sedimentary layers of evidence, and varying degrees of truthy assertions of fact. The confusion is great because several rival theories can be sort of truthy, i.e. some of their layers are well-supported by evidence and so they are not all wrong. There is not always a simple binary where one can confidently say, "Only one of the theories can be true, and all others must be false." And that's really a big problem with the whole true/false gambit when it comes to the epistemological life of science.

This is where the realm of the probable and the "best explanation" could offer some remedy. It avoids all the tears and self-harm that can result from truth talk. It makes no pretense of truth at all. And it doesn't get quite so involved in cannibalistic zero sum games where one theory must WIN and all others must LOSE. See, if you have a best explanation, then there is likely a rival that is the second-best explanation. And that's actually a comfort, if some anomalous development comes along and knocks the best explanation off its perch. You've got some backups and may not have to completely start from scratch.

To be sure, there are some best explanations that implode completely and there is nothing "second best" waiting in the wings to step forward. When better telescopes could be pointed at Mars, the canals and their ancient Martian builders vanished completely. The objects of the prior explanation ceased to exist. All that was left was Percival Lowell's embarassing episodes of pareidolia. I suppose one could say that Percy's pareidolia had been around for a while as a rival "theory," but it was more just a simple debunk.

 

[DaveC426913]

Just stumbled across this. This is as good a thread to put it in as any.

 

[axocanth]

This is where the realm of the probable and the "best explanation" could offer some remedy. It avoids all the tears and self-harm that can result from truth talk. It makes no pretense of truth at all. And it doesn't get quite so involved in cannibalistic zero sum games where one theory must WIN and all others must LOSE. See, if you have a best explanation, then there is likely a rival that is the second-best explanation. And that's actually a comfort, if some anomalous development comes along and knocks the best explanation off its perch. You've got some backups and may not have to completely start from scratch.

To be sure, there are some best explanations that implode completely and there is nothing "second best" waiting in the wings to step forward. When better telescopes could be pointed at Mars, the canals and their ancient Martian builders vanished completely. The objects of the prior explanation ceased to exist. All that was left was Percival Lowell's embarassing episodes of pareidolia. I suppose one could say that Percy's pareidolia had been around for a while as a rival "theory," but it was more just a simple debunk.

Yes, this is what I was alluding to earlier, though I may not have explained my thoughts clearly. It's often stated, or more likely implied, as I think you do yourself, that even if a particular explanation (e.g. Newton's gravitational attractive force) turns out to be superseded in the future, it is nonetheless still something worth having right now. Indeed, it will continue to be something worth having even afterwards.

Now, no one knows what the future has in store, of course, except for your sleepless nights with Louise. But if the current "best explanation" turns out not to be the best explanation at all, there is nothing whatsoever "worth having" about a second best or a sixteenth best explanation. Once again, on the assumption of mutual incompatibility, if spacetime curvature is the correct explanation then the attractive force explanation is just totally wrong. We might as well take pride in our discredited "Bigfoot killed Kennedy" explanation as a "good try which is still useful".

The only reason the "best explanation" is valued by some people (not all!) is because they feel there is a link between "best explanation" and "truth" - the former is a reliable indicator of the latter. So . . .

This is where the realm of the probable and the "best explanation" could offer some remedy. It avoids all the tears and self-harm that can result from truth talk. It makes no pretense of truth at all.

Oh yes it does!! To repeat from before, the only reason a scientist would be interested in the "best explanation" -- unless he takes himself to be in the entertainment or raconteur business or something equally inane -- is if he feels the "best explanation" indicates truth.

What possible good is a ripping good yarn (cf. Bigfoot killed Kennedy) to a scientist if it is not true, or at least approximately so? You tell me, Mr Vat! (Instrumental efficacy is another matter)


And at this point we have to be extremely careful lest we find ourselves arguing in a vacuous circle. "Best explanation", however it is characterized, must itself make no reference to "truth". To do so is to beg the very question at issue. Let me explain . . .

The inference (IBE) goes something like this : We are licensed to infer from a set of candidate explanations that the best among them is likely to be true.

Now, if you characterize the "best explanation" as "the explanation most likely to be true" then by substitution we get:

We are licensed to infer from a set of candidate explanations that the one among them most likely to be true is . . . um . . . likely to be true.

I trust you see the circularity.


Thus, any scientist who states that evolution (say) is the best explanation because it's more likely to be true than the "God did it" explanation (say) is telling us precisely nothing. He's effectively saying "Evolution is likely to be true because it's likely to be true".

"Best explanation", then, must be characterized in a manner which makes no reference to truth, i.e., does not smuggle truth in past customs. Perhaps the most lovely explanation, or the most unificatory explanation, or . . .

See Peter Lipton's "Inference to the Best Explanation" for more.


P.S. Bet I can explain those bags under your eyes.

 

[axocanth]

Anyway, I think Coyne does stumble around some. What matters is that science sharpen the understanding that theories are often uneven agglomerations of hypotheses, accumulating sedimentary layers of evidence, and varying degrees of truthy assertions of fact. The confusion is great because several rival theories can be sort of truthy, i.e. some of their layers are well-supported by evidence and so they are not all wrong. There is not always a simple binary where one can confidently say, "Only one of the theories can be true, and all others must be false." And that's really a big problem with the whole true/false gambit when it comes to the epistemological life of science.

Just as an afterthought to my reply above (and your posts are always very thought provoking, Mr Vat) . . .

I don't think anyone regards the switch from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics, say, as a complete loss -- 250 wasted years! No, that would be an absurd take on the matter. From an instrumentalist position, Newton's theory was, and still is, extremely powerful; said power arising from the predictions which can be derived from the theory.

On the other hand, in terms of understanding, knowledge, explanation of the unobservable entities and processes responsible for the observed phenomena. I think we do have to write off Newton as a complete loss. On the assumption that the core posits of his theory (absolute space, absolute time, attractive force, etc.) do not refer -- i.e., do not exist (see post 190) -- then it's in precisely the same predicament as the phlogiston or the Santa Claus theory. That is, it explains nothing, and yields no genuine knowledge or understanding at all. Would you agree with this?

Having said all that, it does seem that something more than just instrumental power is carried over from the predecessor to the successor theory. We don't merely have a better tool now; Newton latched onto something real in nature. But what is this "something more" if not the unobservable entities and processes?

Dunno if you've read Steven Weinberg on this, but he speaks of a "hard core" being carried over just as the "soft core" is jettisoned. I'd be tempted to use the terms in reverse, but I think what he's alluding to is the relationships that hold between massive bodies. Yes, we do retain an understanding of these relationships, at least within a more narrowly circumscribed domain than the universality we had previously assigned to them.

There is a position known as "structural realism" -- a kind of middle ground between unabashed realism and an anemic instrumentalism -- which, I believe, advocates something like the above. Indeed, if my memory serves me correct, we may have touched on it on your site when you had frizzy hair and wore a chest medallion.

Any thoughts?

 

[foghorn]

“Ever since Francis Bacon, it had been believed that the laws of Nature were there to be ‘discovered’, if only one made the right
experiments. Einstein taught us differently. He stressed the vital role of human inventiveness in the process. Newton ‘invented’ the force
of gravity to explain the motion of the planets. Einstein ‘invented’ curved spacetime and the geodesic law; in his theory there is no force
of gravity. If two such utterly different mathematical models can (almost) both describe the same observations, surely it must be admitted
that physical theories do not tell us what nature is, only what it is like. The marvel is that nature seems to go along with some of the
‘simplest’ models that can be constructed . . . ”
Wolfgang Rindle
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Best model that answers most questions thrown up by observation is still a model.

 

[axocanth]

Fascinating quote, foghorn! Thanks so much for sharing. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to briefly examine Einstein's philosophy of science -- how lucky we are that the great man elaborated at some length on the topic! -- notions of scientific method in general, and the ultimate question of whether science can ever "lift a corner of veil" (another of AE's pet phrases) and peer through to unobservable reality.

If you scroll back, way back in posts #2 and #3 the subject of whether scientists can somehow derive their theories from the observable phenomena in a logical or methodical manner was already touched on. And as I noted right there in post #3 Einstein believed that they could not. There is no Method of discovering scientific theories. If there's one phrase that he emphasizes time and time again it is that the concepts in scientific theories are "free inventions" or "free creations" of the scientific mind; they are not given to us in experience, as Newton and the inductivists had believed. Rindler notes the same above.


The man himself . . .


"The natural philosophers of those days [Newton's days] were, on the contrary, most of them possessed with the idea that the fundamental concepts and postulates of physics were not in the logical sense free inventions of the human mind but could be deduced from experience by "observation" -- that is to say, by logical means. A clear recognition of the erroneousness of this notion really only came with the general theory of relativity, which showed that one could take account of a wider range of empirical facts, and that, too, in a more satisfactory and complete manner, on a foundation quite different from the Newtonian."


and . . .


"We now realize, with special clarity, how much in error are those theorists who believe that theory comes inductively from experience. Even the great Newton could not free himself from this error ("Hypotheses non fingo"). [ . . . ]

There is no inductive method which could lead to the fundamental concepts of physics. Failure to understand this fact constituted the basic philosophical error of so many investigators of the nineteenth century. [ . . . ]

Physics constitutes a logical system of thought which is in a state of evolution, and whose basis cannot be obtained through distillation by any inductive method from the experiences lived through, but which can only be attained by free invention."


and . . .


"We can indeed see from Newton's formulation of it that the concept of absolute space, which comprised that of absolute rest, made him feel uncomfortable; he realized that there seemed to be nothing in experience corresponding to this last concept. He was also not quite comfortable about the introduction of forces operating at a distance. But the tremendous practical success of his doctrines may well have prevented him and the physicists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from recognizing the fictitious character of the foundations of his system."




Note Einstein's use of the word "fictitious" (cf. Rindler above). Newton quite literally -- in AE's view at least -- made up the concepts in his theory, despite what Sir Isaac evidently thought himself. Albert makes no exception for himself, mind you; in other places he applies the same word "fictitious" to his own array of theoretical posits.

Now, if a plurality of conceptually incompatible, fundamentally different (cf. "utterly different" - Rindler) theories can be "made up" to accommodate precisely the same set of observable data, we say that the theories are "underdetermined by the data/evidence", and one might now sensibly conclude that any hope of peeking beyond that Veil of Maya is lost. We can never know how "nature really is" (see Rindler above).

This appears to be Rindler's conclusion, and your own too (yes?). One is then drawn to an antirealist position of one kind of another. Perhaps the best science can ever hope for is "empirical adequacy", i.e., a theory consistent with all the facts. Indeed there may be a plurality thereof, in which case you can take your pick, maybe appealing to pragmatic factors (e.g. simplicity) to assist your choice. This appears to be precisely the situation which obtains in quantum physics at present: numerous theories which are conceptually different -- i.e. cannot all be true -- but which account for exactly the same set of observable data.

One empirically adequate model is as good as another? Seems like you and Rindler think so.

But could there be a "right way" to pierce that veil, breaking the deadlock of theories that merely "save the phenomena", allowing us a glimpse of how nature really is? Can we ever get to the "root of the matter"? Dare we ever hope for a true theory?

Judge for yourself . . .



"Can we hope to be guided safely by experience at all when there exist theories (such as classical mechanics) which to a large extent do justice to experience, without getting to the root of the matter? I answer without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a right way, and that we are capable of finding it. Our experience hitherto justifies us in believing that nature is the realization of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas. I am convinced that we can discover by means of purely mathematical constructions the concepts and the laws connecting them with each other, which furnish the key to the understanding of natural phenomena."


Certainty, however, is a luxury that will forever elude us . . .


"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however they may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way to open the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all of the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison."