Science and Technology Studies

Methods and Paradigms in Science

Course Convenor
Bregham Dalgliesh

Professor-in-waitng
Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Informaton Studies
 Contents
Common view of science (scientsm) 3-6
Logical positvism 7-8
Problems with logical positvism 9-10
Falsifcatonism 11-14
Problems with falsifcatonism 15
Comparing falsifcatonism & logical positvism 16-17
Authority of modern science 18-19
Questoning science's progressivist narratve 20-21
Paradigm change in science 22-27
Philosophy of science (and STS) afer Kuhn 28

Bregham Dalgliesh (GSII, University of Tokyo) 2

 Common view of science (scientsm) 1
Science as a formal methodological actvity
● Purpose of science is know-
ledge of the natural world
● Guarantor of science's quest

for progress is its method

● The method makes the natural

world the benchmark of truth

A method of systematc (disembodied) procedures

● Scientsts can agree (via reason) on key questons and theories
● Scientsts looking at the same data can agree on the results

● Scientfc method is transcendental (tme) and ahistorical (place)

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 Common view of science (scientsm) 2
Knowledge (via method) is power, hence the mastery
of the natural world for the purposes of harnessing it

Francis Bacon’s New Atlants (1627)

European travellers come across an island-state (or ‘commonwealth’) of Bensalem (derived from
Hebrew and meaning the ‘perfect son’, i.e., a new [utopian] kind of Jerusalem). It is a technoscientfc
‘heaven on earth’ that is free from want and where all needs are met, either naturally or artfcially.

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 Common view of science (scientsm) 3
Modern will to know
● We represent to intervene
● Or we want to know in order

to exercise power-over (ability)

and deploy power-to (capacity)
● Aim of our desire to know is to

alter, change or transform things

Science as a vocaton
‘Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light’.

Alexander Pope’s epitaph (Isaac Newton’s tomb) Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620)
A ship sailing through the pillars of Hercules (the
limits of Western civilisaton) on a voyage to
discover a ‘new world’ and the secrets of nature.

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 Common view of science (scientsm) 4
Two dominant methods in modern (Western) science

1. Logical positvism

2. Falsifcatonism

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 Logical positvism 1
Logical positvism's purpose of science
● A philosophical account of how science should proceed
● The ulterior motve is evangelical

 Logical positvism a methodological blueprint for all research

● Success, i.e., positvism dominated social science 1930s-1970s

Logical positvism's authority

● What is a scientfc theory?
 Summary of all possible observatons in a structured language
● Where does the meaning/truth value of a theory come from?
 Derives from the empirical things or data that verify the theory

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 Logical positvism 2
Logical positvism's method
● Science is a formal actvity that constructs theories
 Logical arrangement of observatons into coherent statements
● Progress via (Baconian) inducton
 I.e., proceed from the partcular (data) to the universal (theory)
 Increase the number & range of observatons a theory suggests

 Theory develops via transforming data into general statements

Atracton is the verifcaton theory of meaning

● Meaning of a statement derives from its empirical verifcaton
 As such, statements that are unverifable empirically are said to
be meaningless (i.e., unscientfc and not to be taken seriously)
● E.g., Richard Dawkins' (evangelical) faith in scientfc predictons
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 Problems with logical positvism 2
Inducton
● Claims why the future should be
like the past are ofen founded
on habit and custom, rather than
a presumed cause and efect
● Arguments of ‘n + 1’ derived

from experience are fallible

 E.g., the sun will rise tomorrow
as it's always risen in the past
● Cannot with certainty make true
general statements from a
set of data that have simply
occurred repettvely in the past

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 Falsifcatonism 1
Logical positvism's atracton
● Relatonship between theory and observaton of data
● Accept a theory because of its connecton to empirical evidence

Falsifcatonism's purpose of science

● Task of science is to make empirical predictons from theories
● Falsifcatonism follows more of a deductve than inductve logic

Falsifcatonism's purpose for philosophy of science

● Demarcate science from pseudo-science
● Context – tme and shaping of content – of the Cold War

● Reasonable/scientfc versus ideological/totalitarian societes

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 Falsifcatonism 2
Falsifcatonism's method
● Genuine scientfc theories are falsifable
 Predictons are open to queston, hence an open, democratc society
 Predictons falsifed by data, thus rejected as false, whence progress

● Pseudo-scientfc theories cannot be falsifed

 No frm predictons and explain away anything contradictory
 E.g., ideologies and total, all encompassing theories

Falsifcatonism in acton
● Science is thus also a formal – though imaginatve – actvity
● Theories are free-foatng with meaning not ted to observaton

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 Falsifcatonism 3
Falsifcatonism is a creatve endeavour
● Theories are like conjectures that proceed via deducton
 Rejects logical positvism's inductve
method that constructs theories from scratch
 E.g., Kékulé’s dream of a

snake swallowing its tail

● But there is stll a method
to evaluate theories
 Theories that avoid risky
predictons are classifed
as pseudo-scientfc
 Similarly, a theory that August Kekulé (lef), the self-devouring snake (middle) and
the benzene ring molecular structure it inspired (right).
makes bad predictons is
simply ruled out as false

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 Falsifcatonism 4
Scientsts have a special character
● Science is for skeptcs only
● Theories only ever make

provisionally good predictons

 State-of-the-art or fronter science
is simply what we know so far
● Scientsts are unwilling to accept
anything as defnitvely true
● Assumes the positon of

fallibility vis-à-vis their theories

Progress
● Successive refnement and extension of theory to more data

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 Problems with falsifcatonism 1
The Duhem-Quine thesis
● Theories are part of a web of beliefs
 Cannot test a theory in isolaton from its network
 They have hard core assumptons and a set of extra,

sof core assumptons that are ofen tweaked and revised

Bad faith (e.g., determining who is a witch)

● Incorrect predictons are ofen legitmately explained away
 E.g., Newton disregarded the evidence of the path of the moon
 Fudged the data instead of abandoning his theory of gravity,

laws of moton and calculatng devices he had established

 Vindicated as the problem lay in the optcal assumptons used to

interpret the data, so he revised and theory made perfect predictons

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 Comparing falsifcatonism and logical positvism 1
Falsifcatonism versus Verifcatonism

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 Comparing falsifcatonism and logical positvism 2
Explanatory versus Descriptve

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 Authority of modern science 1
What is ‘scientfc’ about science?
● Formal theory/data relatons produce the content of science
 Ratonal constructon of logical theories for empirical data
 Humble dismissal of theory if empirical data falsifes it

 Language that describes data and makes predictons is a tool

● The external world or context is kept out of science

Science is about ‘realism’ or theories that are ‘true’

● Progress: precise predictons, greater scope of knowledge
● Truth: science’s predictve power from increase of knowledge

● Norms: scientsts follow norms and standards in their work

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 Authority of modern science 2
Process of formal empirical science that leads to truth

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 Questoning science's progressivist narratve 1
Questoning science as a formal actvity
● Focus switches from the content to the context of science
● I.e., from understanding scientfc progress towards truth as a

functon of theories linked to data, to seeing theoretcal statements

and research agendas as a functon of the socio-politcal context

Philosophy of science tested by a history of science

● Expected answer: confrmaton that science is progressive

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientfc Revolutons

● Published in 1962 (2nd editon 1970 with a new introducton)
● Change in science’s content depends on extra-scientfc context

● Kuhn groups these extra-scientfc phenomena into ‘paradigm’

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 Questoning the progressivist narratve of science 2
What is a paradigm?
‘[A paradigm is] an entre constellaton of
beliefs, values and techniques, and so on,
shared by the members of a given community’.

Thomas Kuhn (1962). The Structure

of Scientfc Revolutons. Postscript.

How then does

science progress?
● Normal science – crisis –
paradigm change – return to
(the new) normal science

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 Paradigm change in science 1
Normal science
● Scientsts share a view of what science is and how to do it
 Recogniton of past achievements and paths of progress
 Common beliefs about which theories are true

 Appreciaton of the important problems in the feld

 Agreement on which methods might solve these problems

● Shared vision dominates during normal science = paradigm

 Literally, an example for others to follow
 Indicates theoretcal and methodological tools for research

● Paradigm is a guide on how to do science from day to day

 Being a scientst is a form of life in which answers to questons
are like puzzle-solving: the paradigm provides the pieces and
scientsts (collectvely imagine, agree or accept) the world picture

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 Paradigm change in science 2
Defending normal science
● Unsolved problems are described as ‘anomalies’
 They go unquestoned and unsolved
● The scientfc community ‘socialises’ critcism
 Students read textbooks and do traditonal forms of training
 Solve issues because careers, research egos, prestge are at stake

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 Paradigm change in science 3
Crisis
● Paradigms are only
ever partal representatons
 Anomalies accumulate
and become real extra-
puzzle problems that
are not answered by the
available intellectual means
● Scientsts – ofen new
ones – feel uneasy
with the paradigm
 Think the unthinkable
 Is there an alternatve

way to see things?

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 Paradigm change in science 4
Revoluton
● Crisis ensues and confdence in
established paradigm declines
● Mavericks or visionaries

or geniuses rock the boat

● And/or younger – not as yet fully

indoctrinated – scientsts jump ship

● Careers are made as the

‘older generaton dies of’ (Planck)

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 Paradigm change in science 5
Progress within paradigms
● In periods of normal science progress does occur

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 Paradigm change in science 6
Incommensurability across paradigms
● Switches in paradigm are not progressive
● New paradigms both build upon and destroy older ones

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 Philosophy of science (and STS) afer Kuhn
Kuhn’s conclusions
● Revolutons (paradigm change) in science are non-progressive
● Kuhn rejects so-called ‘Whig history’

 I.e., see the past as a series of progressive steps to the present

● Truth relatve to a paradigm as theories are incommensurable
 Science is mainly about ideas and practces, not formal actvites
 The context of science shapes – if not determines – its content

Suggests scientfc knowledge is partal, non-objectve

● Extra scientfc social, politcal, economic and cultural criteria
impinge upon and infuence scientsts and research agendas
● Change occurs when normal science becomes patently absurd

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