Essential Science - Brush Chapters 5-9

Who championed the use of empiricism in the scientific method?

David Hume

What were the four parts of the Logical Positivism movement?

Empiricism - all knowledge comes from the five senses Probabilism - inductive truths can be proved true if scientists can show that they are probable Positivism - creating a unifying scientific method for all the sciences to use Linguistic logic - developing a common language of science based on the verification principle

Who championed the use of induction (rather than deduction) in science?

Francis Bacon

What does the principle of falsification ignore?

Human nature, and how scientists are human, and don't easily give up the ideas they've worked months or years on.

What is Hume's Problem?

Inductively derived scientific truths can never be absolutely proven because we cannot test the new premise/hypothesis on every case study to see if it is universally true. Example: My theory is that all dogs have fur. I would have to go around the world and look at every dog to see if they had fur. This is later rebuttled by Karl Popper and his falsification theory.

Why did the Logical Positivism movement fail?

It was found that most inductive statements couldn't be assigned high probablities, and math wasn't always reliable because it contains contradictions.

What are the prehistoric and historic eras?

Prehistoric time refers to the time before writing was introduced. Historic time refers to all the time and recorded history after that.

What does the story of Knossos illustrate?

That a scientist's interpretations can be influenced strongly by their own culture, biases, and worldview.

What was the goal of the Logical Positivism movement?

To find/create a philosophy of science that would show how scientific truth is better than religious or metaphysical truth.

How does culture influence scientists?

their language the quantified units they use their philosophical beliefs areas of study as determined by outside funding opportunity for praise and recognition determined by their area of study, deemed important by their culture

Scientific skepticism believes that...

there is no difference between all the pathways to truth, so we shouldn't shun culturally "taboo" pathways like witchcraft, myth, etc.

All good stories contain a mixture of...

truth and fiction.

According to Imre Lakatos, why is scientific truth superior to other ways to truth?

Because it leads to the discovery of unknown, novel facts.

Why is using stories to convey data a flawed method of communication in science?

Because scientists have to select and organize their facts in order to create a neat, logical story that they feel must follow a certain order/plot as determined by their culture; and often the discrepancies or missing data are left out.

What is the principle of falsification?

The idea that inductive statements don't need to be proven right (impossible), but rather proven wrong by one contradictory case, which is so much easier. "Falsifiability over verifiability." If hypotheses are set up so that it is easily falsifiable, then the false ones can be discarded quickly and make room for new ones.

What cultural tool do scientists rely on to organize and convey their data?

The narrative/story.

What is deduction?

The process of applying general statements to specific facts or situations.

What is induction?

The process that uses a given set of specific facts or instances to produce a generalization.