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

[TheVat]

Well, if we come across a phenomenon, perhaps in the future, whose complexity defies explanation in terms of known natural processes, we can infer either:

1. It came about through natural processes not yet known to us, or

2. It did not come about through natural processes at all


Again, the latter is something you will simply not entertain. A "Divine Foot" simply will not be admitted to this party! - as Lewontin puts it, due to your a priori metaphysical commitments.

It's not that we couldn't entertain 2, it is just that there is no complexity border patrol who have established a complexity which requires a divine appendage. Parsimony is a useful value in science, don't confuse it with a rigid dogma. Sure, a divine appendage could be sticking itself into all the simmering pots, and I pretend no a priori commitment that it couldn't be out there, but how would such a conjecture ever be tested so as to rule out all the other ones? Sentient galaxies, a Matrix simulation, hallucinogenic spores we failed to notice, etc, all swept off the conjecture menu. Uh huh. You still can't give this tired old creationist retread any empirical adequacy, AFAICT. And I know you are just playing advocate here to sharpen our understanding of how loosely all these scientific values are applied - I don't disagree there. But parsimony (Ockham) is a really useful one that has brought us a long way from epicycles, demons, and phlogiston.

 

[axocanth]

Bedtime, Mr Vat. Always a pleasure. Cya tomorrow.

 

[TheVat]

Just for the record, are you guys asserting that scientists have been completely silent on the flagella stuff?

Or have they scientifically appraised a consequence of ID theory and found it wanting?

This misstates the situation. Scientists study flagella to understand the biomechanics and so on. There is no particular need to reject a flagella designer, when the empirical basis is that it developed naturally. Sure, natural processes could have been shaped by god particles or whatever, but in the absence of evidence of god particles with drafting tables, why chase off down that road? Again, parsimony and following the evidence seem like a better path. If scientists do break silence on ID flagella, it is to clarify what they are doing and how it differs from other domains like religion.

A schoolteacher doesn't bother devoting their time to fairly appraising theories of Dogs Eating Homework when a student fails to turn in work. They go with "children lie defensively to cover up laziness." Abductive inference to the best explanation can be a great timesaver.

 

[C C]

I've always found Richard Lewontin to be an uncommonly sensible fella . . .

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

- Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons" (New York Review of Books)

In proper context, that's methodological naturalism. A prescribed "game" in science of proceeding AS IF philosophical naturalism was the case (rather than literally embracing metaphysical naturalism in approach). I can't attest that Lewontin colored within the lines throughout. He may have thumped a boot on the lectern at times so hard that it could be interpreted as the non-methodological variety. (Ergo, the intro of "proper context".)

If ID actually entertained space aliens as a potential source of life on Earth, then it might (depending on some evidence being presented) at least enter the starting gate of the procedural process of science. But that doesn't seem to be case , or at best is superficial veneer floated by some adherents in the past (or ID itself disqualifying such due to some grander picture of universe origin it embraces).

• Concepts: Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. Of Pandas and People proposes that SETI illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science. In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as a real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "makes many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists". The authoritative description of intelligent design, however, explicitly states that the Universe displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the paradox, Dembski concludes that "no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life." The leading proponents have made statements to their supporters that they believe the designer to be the Christian God, to the exclusion of all other religions.

[...] Likewise, when someone like myself suggests there is no such thing as The Scientific Method, the general reaction is one of incredulity: "What kind of madman would say such a thing?!!" [...]

As capitalization perhaps implies, it's along the line of an overarching "scientific method" being vulnerable or open to poking, in contrast to specific or immediate guidelines slash practices supposedly in play.

• Percy Bridgman: It seems to me that there is a good deal of ballyhoo about scientific method. I venture to think that the people who talk most about it are the people who do least about it. Scientific method is what working scientists do, not what other people or even they themselves may say about it. No working scientist, when he plans an experiment in the laboratory, asks himself whether he is being properly scientific, nor is he interested in whatever method he may be using as method. When the scientist ventures to criticize the work of his fellow scientist, as is not uncommon, he does not base his criticism on such glittering generalities as failure to follow the "scientific method," but his criticism is specific, based on some feature characteristic of the particular situation. The working scientist is always too much concerned with getting down to brass tacks to be willing to spend his time on generalities. . . . . What appears to [the working scientist] as the essence of the situation is that he is not consciously following any prescribed course of action, but feels complete freedom to utilize any method or device whatever which in the particular situation before him seems likely to yield the correct answer. In his attack on his specific problem he suffers no inhibitions of precedent or authority, but is completely free to adopt any course that his ingenuity is capable of suggesting to him. No one standing on the outside can predict what the individual scientist will do or what method he will follow. In short, science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists." --Reflections of a Physicist
  
  Peter Medawar: Ask a scientist what he conceives the scientific method to be, and he will adopt an expression that is at once solemn and shifty-eyed: solemn, because he feels he ought to declare an opinion; shifty-eyed, because he is wondering how to conceal the fact that he has no opinion to declare. . . . . If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned? --Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought

 

[TheVat]

Bedtime, Mr Vat. Always a pleasure. Cya tomorrow.

Seeya. Watch out for lemurs. They will steal your glasses if you don't keep them in a drawer. (my current nightime bane is cats moving my slippers into other rooms - they seem to think it's hilarious making me go hunting for them while half asleep)

 

[axocanth]

This runs into the weeds of dualistic incoherence. How can anything with observable consequences (i.e. effects) in this domain we call "the physical" be in another domain which is not physical? If things which affect the physical are by definition thenselves physical, then the designer is physical and therefore subject to the empirical weaknesses I noted before, i.e. no test can establish it is not just a clever alien or a sentient galaxy or something else which arose by natural processes of a great complexity allowed by huge stretches of time. There is simply no inference of the sort that quantum tunneling and quarks and scalar fields offer, where a creator can step forward in the lineup as the abductive best explanation.

Off the top of my head, the complaint above can be criticized on two counts:

(i) Possible straw man: Correct me if I'm wrong for, as I've noted already, I don't know much about ID. It's my understanding, however, that current ID theory -- precisely in order to evade dubious charges of it being religion -- makes no assertions about the nature of this postulated "intelligence" (e.g. Is it supernatural or not?).

(ii) The complaint amounts to: "It's incomprehensible how something non-physical could causally affect our physical domain. It's absurd. We cannot cannot conceive of any mechanism that could account for this"

Need I remind readers that a common criticism of Newtonian action-at-a-distance gravitational theory was that it was absurd. Newton himself conceded the absurdity of an action-at-a-distance force. No one could comprehend how a force could be transmitted instantaneously though nothing. Newtonian theory was nonetheless accepted as scientific in the absence of a plausible mechanism. Newtonian theory is not alone in this.

And before anyone screams, we know all about the practical success of Newton's theory. The point, however, is that the postulation of a plausible mechanism is not a necessary condition for something to be scientific.



It's clear how this discussion is going . . .


Dogmatic Materialist (DM): "ID is not scientific because A."

Pain In The Ass (PITA): "Criticism A doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

DM: "In that case, ID is not scientific because B."

PITA: "Criticism B doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

DM: "In that case, ID is not scientific because C."

PITA: "Criticism C doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

DM: "In that case, ID is not scientific because D."

. . .


And when we run out of English letters, we'll move onto the Cyrillic script, and then perhaps 10,000 Chinese characters.

Rather than face the death of a thousand cuts, I'll direct readers to a very sensible article -- with disturbing consequences for the scientific community -- written by a very sensible philosopher of science named Larry Laudan that I already linked weeks ago in the "ID Reflux" thread.

https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/Laudan.pdf

Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism. Once that question is settled, we will know what belongs in the classroom and what does not. Debating the scientific status of Creationism (especially when "science" is construed in such an unfortunate manner) is a red herring that diverts attention away from the issues that should concern us.

[ . . . ]

But let us be clear about what is at stake. In setting out in the McLean Opinion to characterize the "essential" nature of science, Judge Overton was explicitly venturing into philosophical terrain. His obiter dicta are about as remote from well-founded opinion in the philosophy of science as Creationism is from respectable geology. It simply will not do for the defenders of science to invoke philosophy of science when it suits them (e.g., their much-loved principle of falsifiability comes directly from the philosopher Karl Popper) and to dismiss it as "arcane" and "remote" when it does not. However noble the motivation, bad philosophy makes forbad law.

The victory in the Arkansas case was hollow, for it was achieved only at the expense of perpetuating and canonizing a false stereotype of what science is and how it works. If it goes unchallenged by the scientific community, it will raise grave doubts about that community's intellectual integrity. No one familiar with the issues can really believe that anything important was settled through anachronistic efforts to revive a variety of discredited criteria for distinguishing between the scientific and the non-scientific. Fifty years ago, Clarence Darrow asked, a propos of the Scopes trial, "Isn't it difficult to realize that a trial of this kind is possible in the twentieth century in the United States of America?"

We can raise that question anew, with the added irony that, this time, the pro-science forces are defending a philosophy of science which is, in its way, every bit as outmoded as the "science" of the creationists.

 

[axocanth]

Seeya. Watch out for lemurs. They will steal your glasses if you don't keep them in a drawer. (my current nightime bane is cats moving my slippers into other rooms - they seem to think it's hilarious making me go hunting for them while half asleep)

I never had any such kleptomania issues with lemurs, adorable lil beasties that they are. Exactly what you describe above, however, did happen to me on a place called "Monkey Island" near Saigon, Vietnam a few years ago. Within minutes, or perhaps seconds, of entering the sanctuary, one of the bastards jumped on my back, absquatulating with my glasses, leaving me half blind and unable to defend myself against dogmatic materialists (jk ).

A helpful park ranger was eventually able to retrieve them, filthy but undamaged. A tip was suggested. Watch out for my my upcoming thread on simian-human collusive conspiracy theories . . .

 

[axocanth]

From the Laudan article (two posts above) . . .

"Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism."



Exactly as Charles Darwin did in Origin!

And to reiterate, the arguments that Darwin marshalled against what he called "Special Creation" did not (obviously) take the form of hypothetico-deductive reasoning -- what James tells just is The "Scientific Method".

Darwin, rather, appealed to explanatory inference: Darwin argued, "My theory explains the evidence better than any rival."



Our next contestant, then, in the Miss Scientific Method pageant is Miss Inference-To-The-Best-Explanation in a stunning nightgown. Give her a big hand everyone.

 

[axocanth]

An intelligent designer is likewise not directly accessible to us. It may even lie in "another domain", as you put it. But insofar as that theory has observable consequences in this domain, it can be tested.

And already has been tested (flagella and whatnot).

Compare with what Larry Laudan says (see article above):

These fall naturally into families: properties (1) and (2) have to do with law-likeness and explanatory ability; the other three properties have to do with the fallibility and testability of scientific claims. I shall deal with the second set of issues first; because it is there that the most egregious errors of fact and judgment are to be found. ,At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. That is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact.

[ . . . ]

In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests. Unfortunately, the logic of the Opinion's analysis precludes saying any of the above. By arguing that the tenets of Creationism are neither testable nor falsifiable, Judge Overton (like those scientists who similarly charge Creationism with being untestable) deprives science of its strongest argument against Creationism. Indeed, if any doctrine in the history of science has ever been falsified, it is the set of claims associated with "creation-science." Asserting that Creationism makes no empirical claims plays directly, if inadvertently, into the hands of the creationists by immunizing their ideology from empirical confrontation. The correct way to combat Creationism is to confute the empirical claims it does make, not to pretend that it makes no such claims at all.

It is true, of course, that some tenets of Creationism are not testable in isolation (e.g., the claim that man emerged by a direct supernatural act of creation). But that scarcely makes Creationism "unscientific." It is now widely acknowledged that many scientific claims are not testable in isolation, but only when embedded in a larger system of statements, some of whose consequences can be submitted to test.

 

[axocanth]

This misstates the situation. Scientists study flagella to understand the biomechanics and so on. There is no particular need to reject a flagella designer, when the empirical basis is that it developed naturally. Sure, natural processes could have been shaped by god particles or whatever, but in the absence of evidence of god particles with drafting tables, why chase off down that road? Again, parsimony and following the evidence seem like a better path. If scientists do break silence on ID flagella, it is to clarify what they are doing and how it differs from other domains like religion.

A schoolteacher doesn't bother devoting their time to fairly appraising theories of Dogs Eating Homework when a student fails to turn in work. They go with "children lie defensively to cover up laziness." Abductive inference to the best explanation can be a great timesaver.

Yes, but it's no part of "The Scientific Method" . . . at least if TSM is hypothetico-deductivism (as James has been arguing).

On matters of explanatory inference, the H-D method is completely silent.

Do we now have a new candidate for Miss Scientific Method 2024 ?

 

[axocanth]

One more thing, I'm just wondering what TheVat found to "like" in CC's latest post above. It seems to me both Percy Bridgman and Peter Medawar are affirming -- as they explicitly do in other places (if I recall correctly) -- that there is no such thing.

• Percy Bridgman: No one standing on the outside can predict what the individual scientist will do or what method he will follow. In short, science is what scientists do, and there are as many scientific methods as there are individual scientists."
  
  Peter Medawar: Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned?

Why, then, is this myth -- this Holy Spirit of science -- perpetuated and encouraged? -- at the very same time as members here denounce the (putative) untruths, dishonesty, and mythology of their enemies.

Sorry, your time is up. The correct answer is: It makes science sound heroic and unique even if The Scientific Method is a load of fairytale bollocks!




Dear old Uncle Albert again (I have an incurable crush on sensible men lol) . . .

“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”

In other words, you will not find any form of reasoning or inference general throughout science -- from hypothetico-deductive to inductive to explanatory inference and everything else in between -- that is not used by the entire human race, perhaps dogs and cats too (found your slippers yet?), and was used by the entire human race for millennia before Einstein, Galileo, or even Aristotle were conceived.

 

[axocanth]

We're all wankers, but some of us were colonized by wankers
-------------------------------------------------------------------


"The Philosophy of Science Is As Useful To Scientists As Ornithology Is To Birds"


Richard Feynman was notoriously hostile to the philosophy of science. Whether or not he actually said the above is a bit obscure, though it's often attributed to him. It certainly would not be out of character if he had said it.

Now the point to be made here is not whether Feynman said it or, but if what is being asserted is true, then we can conclude that whatever mental masturbation those philosopher dudes get up to, it's of no significance to working scientists. Scientists can and do get along it without it very well. As far as actual real world science is concerned, it's just empty talk, it's comic book stuff, it's useless, it's insignificant, and it's utterly worthless. It's not something that any scientist qua scientist ought to be defending.



This is the kind of thing that those contemptuous of philosophy of science are liable to throw a party over. Three cheers for Prof Feynman!! Yay!

These philosophers, eh? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. (see vid below )

But now read carefully again what Peter Medawar says above:

"If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem to be able to get on very well without it. Most scientists receive no tuition in scientific method, but those who have been instructed perform no better as scientists than those who have not. Of what other branch of learning can it be said that it gives its proficients no advantage; that it need not be taught or, if taught, need not be learned?"

A reasonable paraphrase of Medawar's remarks might go as follows . . .

"Whatever mental masturbation those dudes who write about The Scientific Method in science textbooks get up to, it's of no significance to working scientists. Scientists can and do get along it without it very well. As far as actual real world science is concerned, it's just empty talk, it's comic book stuff, it's useless, it's insignificant, and it's utterly worthless. It's not something that any scientist qua scientist ought to be defending."


Sound fair? Er, Sound familiar? Um, wanna throw a party for Prof Medawar?

Readers with nothing better to do might now like to review what science educator Stuart Firestein says way back in post #226 (page 12). A snippet . . .

"I decried [in another book] 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.

No one threw a party for Stuart Firestein either, and any approval of his remarks from our members here was muted, to say the least.

Um, any change of heart since then? Is The Scientific Method something worth defending? Is it any more useful to scientists than ornithology is to birds?

 

[TheVat]

One more thing, I'm just wondering what TheVat found to "like" in CC's latest post above. It seems to me both Percy Bridgman and Peter Medawar are affirming -- as they explicitly do in other places (if I recall correctly) -- that there is no such thing.

Not sure where you are getting a pro-SM vibe from me. I've expressed a liking for the Quinean exploration of scientific values, but certainly no overarching Method. (that's why I keep referencing Wittgenstein family resemblances as well) Like Quine, I can respect the clarity, empirical adequacy, and utility that he takes to be central to the explanatory power of science. Really I don't see science as all that separate from those same values (also include parsimony) as they are found in all areas of human knowledge and inquiry. When I suggest ID isn't science I'm suggesting it lacks some of the values required for ANY research, scientific or otherwise. Short on time this a.m. so I am sorry for not getting to all your specific points, but I hope that answers why I appreciated CC's latest posting.

 

[TheVat]

Really, Charles Sanders Peirce and his abductive ITTBE is the nitty gritty of how we humans figure out what the hell is going on around us. It keeps us from getting lost down rabbit holes of contrived explanations.

 

[parmalee]

Really, Charles Sanders Peirce and his abductive ITTBE is the nitty gritty of how we humans figure out what the hell is going on around us. It keeps us from getting lost down rabbit holes of contrived explanations.

I've been eagerly anticipating Peirce's appearance in this thread.

 

[parmalee]

Really, Charles Sanders Peirce and his abductive ITTBE is the nitty gritty of how we humans figure out what the hell is going on around us. It keeps us from getting lost down rabbit holes of contrived explanations.

Incidentally, somewhere back in these pages there's on thread on G Spencer Brown's wacky Laws of Form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form). I'm still trying to tackle that one, though I get the basic gist, I think. It's been described as very Peirce-ian, I believe.

 

[axocanth]

Really, Charles Sanders Peirce and his abductive ITTBE is the nitty gritty of how we humans figure out what the hell is going on around us. It keeps us from getting lost down rabbit holes of contrived explanations.

I assume this is a reaction to my post #310 above. A reminder . . .

Yes, but [explanatory inference] is no part of "The Scientific Method" . . . at least if TSM is hypothetico-deductivism (as James has been arguing). On matters of explanatory inference, the H-D method is completely silent.

So, in response to TheVat. I agree! There is no doubt whatsoever, in my mind anyway, that scientists frequently appeal to the explanatory power of their theories as a reason to believe these theories, indeed they often explicitly say so, not least Charles Darwin. In other words, then, on this view, the (supposed) explanatory goodness of a theory constitutes evidence for that theory; explanatory power confirms the theory.

Before proceeding, let us note in passing that explanatory inference is hardly restricted to science. Sherlock Holmes and the entire human race use it as a matter of course, and presumably humanoids have been using it since the first Neanderthal came home torn to shreds. ("Was it a bear, dear?").



So what's the problem? It is this:

James told us earlier in the thread that The Scientific Method is hypothetico-deductivism, aka the H-D method. A few things to note:


* The H-D method, as standardly understood, just like Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE), is a method only of testing/confirming theories. It begins when we already have a theory. It offers no advice whatsoever -- contra James -- on how to construct/formulate a theory.

* The H-D method makes no mention of explanation. On the H-D account, again as standardly presented at least, theories are confirmed by their entailments (or implications - see boxed text below), and only by their entailments. That is to say, if, for example, the theory of general relativity entails that light is bent by massive objects, and such a thing is observed, then the bending of light constitutes confirming evidence for that theory.

* The H-D method and Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) are standardly presented as rivals (perhaps to the title of The Scientific Method).

* The H-D method tends to be favored by empiricists (i.e. scientific antirealists). To the empiricist, the only evidence is empirical evidence, that which can be observed. So-called "non-empirical evidence" -- e.g. simplicity, elegance, explanatory goodness -- is not recognized by empiricists, such factors do not constitute evidence at all. Theories receive no confirmation whatsoever from such factors as explanatory power. IBE is not regarded as a valid form of inference when applied to the domain of unobservable reality (but it's ok for you to infer that your missing slippers are the result of feline mischief).

James (in one of his moods -- he vacillates) has told us, following other scientific antirealists, that science cannot yield knowledge of unobservable reality. See post #266 ("Of unobservable reality? I would say: none. We don't have any access to unobservable reality, whatever it might be.")


* IBE tends to be favored by scientific realists. Non-empirical factors (simplicity, explanatory goodness, etc.) as well as empirical observations (i.e. fit with the observed facts) both constitute confirming evidence for a theory.

Take for example the current situation in QM. Numerous theories exist (Many Worlds, Copenhagen, Pilot Waves, etc.) which are empirically equivalent -- they all yield precisely the same observational predictions, if I understand correctly. How do we pick one then? Given that they are all empirically equivalent, is any one of them supported by evidence to a greater degree than the others? The empiricist says no; all evidence is empirical evidence, thus they are all confirmed to exactly the same degree (whatever that might be). The scientific realist, by contrast, appeals to non-empirical evidence (simplicity, explanatory power, etc.) to break the deadlock. Proponents of Many Worlds, for instance, argue that the greater simplicity of their theory (fewer assumptions), and perhaps greater explanatory power too (I dunno), constitutes additional evidence for that theory.


* It's time to make your mind up. Which one, if either, is "The Scientific Method"?

3.2. H-D as a logic of confirmation​

The standard starting point for a non-inductive analysis of the logic of confirmation is known as the Hypothetico-Deductive (H-D) method. In its simplest form, a sentence of a theory which expresses some hypothesis is confirmed by its true consequences. As noted in section 2, this method had been advanced by Whewell in the 19th century, as well as Nicod (1924) and others in the 20th century. Often, Hempel’s (1966) description of the H-D method, illustrated by the case of Semmelweiss’ inferential procedures in establishing the cause of childbed fever, has been presented as a key account of H-D as well as a foil for criticism of the H-D account of confirmation (see, for example, Lipton’s (2004) discussion of inference to the best explanation; also the entry on confirmation). Hempel described Semmelsweiss’ procedure as examining various hypotheses explaining the cause of childbed fever. Some hypotheses conflicted with observable facts and could be rejected as false immediately. Others needed to be tested experimentally by deducing which observable events should follow if the hypothesis were true (what Hempel called the test implications of the hypothesis), then conducting an experiment and observing whether or not the test implications occurred. If the experiment showed the test implication to be false, the hypothesis could be rejected. If the experiment showed the test implications to be true, however, this did not prove the hypothesis true. The confirmation of a test implication does not verify a hypothesis, though Hempel did allow that “it provides at least some support, some corroboration or confirmation for it” (Hempel 1966: 8). The degree of this support then depends on the quantity, variety and precision of the supporting evidence.

Scientific Method (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

plato.stanford.edu

 

[axocanth]

P.S. Note that hypothetico-deductivism is no use to someone like Charles Darwin. Unlike general relativity, say, his theory, being (largely) probabilistic rather than deterministic, may not entail any observations at all. He can, however, and does, argue, that his theory, while not entailing various observations, explains them better than any rival.

 

[axocanth]

Psst, my beady reptilian eyes couldn't help but notice one word glaring back at me in the Stanford article linked two posts above . . .

6.1 “The scientific method” in science education and as seen by scientists​

One of the settings in which the legend of a single, universal scientific method has been particularly strong is science education (see, e.g., Bauer 1992; McComas 1996; Wivagg & Allchin 2002).[5] Often, ‘the scientific method’ is presented in textbooks and educational web pages as a fixed four or five step procedure starting from observations and description of a phenomenon and progressing over formulation of a hypothesis which explains the phenomenon, designing and conducting experiments to test the hypothesis, analyzing the results, and ending with drawing a conclusion. Such references to a universal scientific method can be found in educational material at all levels of science education (Blachowicz 2009), and numerous studies have shown that the idea of a general and universal scientific method often form part of both students’ and teachers’ conception of science (see, e.g., Aikenhead 1987; Osborne et al. 2003). In response, it has been argued that science education need to focus more on teaching about the nature of science, although views have differed on whether this is best done through student-led investigations, contemporary cases, or historical cases (Allchin, Andersen & Nielsen 2014)


Can you see it too?

 

[C C]

One more thing, I'm just wondering what TheVat found to "like" in CC's latest post above. It seems to me both Percy Bridgman and Peter Medawar are affirming -- as they explicitly do in other places (if I recall correctly) -- that there is no such thing. [...]

Included more than that. And those kind of quotes are no earth-shaking matter, anyway. One of the common narratives out there is that practicing scientists don't [totally] cotton to or cater to philosophy's depictions and interpretations of science. (Weinberg being an example, below).

However, when the public or the educational apparatus does request a scientist to relate what science is and how it works, they will borrow some philosophy of science expounding on the subject. Due to PoS or some metascience offspring being the enterprises interested in studying and outputting formal descriptions and understandings about science (which includes occasional practicing scientists themselves venturing into philosophical activity to express an opinion).

So there's arguably a degree of hegemonic posturing there: "We are right in it, we're above these lowly philosophers when it comes to the actual identity of science. But because we've got better things to do, we may have to tap into this or that work to satisfy the curiosity of prying outsiders." (Today most philosophers of science have backgrounds in whichever discipline they're principally investigating the nature of.)

• Steven Weinberg: The insights of philosophers have occasionally benefited physicists, but generally in a negative fashion—by protecting them from the preconceptions of other philosophers. I do not want to draw the lesson here that physics is best done without preconceptions.
  
  At any one moment there are so many things that might be done, so many accepted principles that might be challenged, that without some guidance from our preconceptions one could do nothing at all. It is just that philosophical principles have not generally provided us with the right preconceptions.
  
  In our hunt for the final theory, physicists are more like hounds than hawks; we have become good at sniffing around on the ground for traces of the beauty we expect in the laws of nature, but we do not seem to be able to see the path to the truth from the heights of philosophy.
  
  Physicists do of course carry around with them a working philosophy. For most of us, it is a rough-and-ready realism, a belief in the objective reality of the ingredients of our scientific theories. But this has been learned through the experience of scientific research and rarely from the teachings of philosophers.
  
  This is not to deny all value to philosophy, much of which has nothing to do with science. I do not even mean to deny all value to the philosophy of science, which at its best seems to me a pleasing gloss on the history and discoveries of science.
  
  But we should not expect it to provide today's scientists with any useful guidance about how to go about their work or about what they are likely to find. I should acknowledge that this is understood by many of the philosophers themselves. --Against Philosophy ... from “Dreams of a Final Theory”

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