PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

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PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

• Jeffrey D. Camper, Ph.D.
• Department of Biology
• Francis Marion University

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SCIENTIFIC METHOD

• Science is defined as knowledge of the natural
  world gained by use of the scientific method
• Initial observations identify a problem
• Formulation of a testable hypothesis
• Testing of the hypothesis with experimentation or
  further observations

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NATURAL SCIENCES

• Astronomy
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Geology
• Physics
• Some of psychology
• Use scientific method to study nature

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SOCIAL SCIENCES

• Anthropology
• Archeology
• Economics
• Geography
• Political science
• Sociology
• Some of psychology
• Use scientific method to study various aspects of
  human societies

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SCIENTIFIC THEORIES

• Scientific theories are explanations
• Theories have lots of empirical support
• Ideas that are largely conjectural in science are
  hypotheses
• Evolution, like gravity, is a scientific theory
• Natural phenomena are considered facts if they
  appear true beyond a reasonable doubt

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PARSIMONY

• Occams Razor
• Shortest or simplest explanation is considered
  the best
• Unless there is evidence to support a different
  explanation

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NATURALISM

• Philosophical basis for natural sciences
• Scientific theories must be naturalistic
  explanations of observable phenomena
• Natural as opposed to supernatural
• No spiritual or supernatural components to
  scientific theories
• Philosophical difference between science
  religion
• Religious scientists do not use their faith when
  doing science

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NATURALISM

• Methodological naturalism modern scientists
  accept only hypotheses explanations that
  involve strictly natural causes
• Important guiding principle for science
• Ontological naturalism - view that the natural or
  material world is all that exists
• No spiritual entities exist at all
• Ancient Greeks 1st to use naturalism to explain
  their world
• Therefore they invented science

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Hippocrates (460 377 BC) was possibly the 1st
physician
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Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the first zoologist
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INFERENCE

• Used by scientists to deduce phenomena that cant
  be directly observed
• Nobody has ever seen an electron or a living
  dinosaur
• We know of their existence from experimental or
  fossil evidence respectively

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EXPERIMENTAL HISTORICAL SCIENCE

• Experiments are the most powerful tool that
  science uses
• Use hypothetico-deductive reasoning
• Conclusion follows necessarily from the premises
  (results of an experiment)
• Inescapable conclusion
• Experiments cant be performed in historical
  sciences like cosmology or evolution
• Inductive reasoning infer general principles
  from particulars
• History of life from fossil record
• Infer from smaller parts to the whole

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HISTORY OF LIFE

• There is only 1 true phylogeny or history of life
• That which really happened
• Scientists are trying to figure it out
• Study . . .
• Geological history of Earth
• Fossil record
• Comparative morphology
• DNA sequences of living organisms

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SCIENCE IS NOT. . .

• Belief system
• Natural phenomena happen whether we acknowledge
  them or not
• Cultural
• Only 1 scientific method
• Democratic
• Scientists dont decide what is true or not
• Figure it out from studying Nature
• Moral
• Science does not deal with values issues
• Science is amoral

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NATURALISTIC FALLACY

• What is natural is morally good
• Used to justify social Darwinism
• If survival of the fittest is how nature works
  then society should work that way also
• Laissez faire economics
• Survival of the richest
• Eugenics only people of superior genetics
  should breed or be allowed to live
• White supremacy, nazism, extreme racism

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EVOLUTION CREATIONISM

• Political debate not scientific debate
• Should pseudoscience be taught in science
  classes?
• Should religion be taught in public schools?
• Scientific creationism intelligent design
  theory are not science
• Both assume a creator or designer
• Supernatural entity
• Violates principle of naturalism
• pseudoscience

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THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

• An experiment is a question which science poses
  to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of
  Natures answer
• German Physicist Max Planck
• 1949 Autobiography