Phil 3318: Philosophy of Science

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Phil 3318 Philosophy of Science

• Kuhn-ian Revolutions

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Real Revolutions as metaphor.

• Scientific Revolutions are those non-cumulative
  developmental episodes in which an older paradigm
  is replaced in whole or in part by an
  incompatible one (92)

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Analogical points

1. Revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense,
   often restricted to a segment of the political
   community, that existing institutions have ceased
   to adequately meet the problems posed by an
   environment that they have in part created (92)

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• 2. (although Kuhn doesnt number it) Revolutions
  often seem revolutionary only to those whose
  paradigms are affected to them.

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• 3. (numbered 2) Success of a revolution
  necessitates, in part, the relinquishment of one
  set of institutions in favor of another, an in
  the interim, society is not governed by
  institutions at all.

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Conclusion

• Well, that seems to be point (3).
• During revolutions, society is divided into
  competing camps or parties one seeking to
  defend the old, others seeking to replace it with
  new.
• (There may be competing new camps as well)
• Once that kind of polarization occurs, political
  recourse fails.

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• The parties are fighting over the legitimacy of
  institutions by which political decisions can be
  made for that very reason, there is no
  political mechanism for adjudicating between the
  parties.
• So, the parties must take to the streets
  appeal to something other than political will
  (such as God, history, etc) or resort to force.

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• The success of the winner is determined not by
  political institutions, but by extrapolitical
  institutions by the very fact that they replace
  those institutions by which they legitimize
  themselves.

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Therefore, by analogy

• Scientific revolutions gain legitimacy not by
  factors internal to science, but by
  extra-scientific methods, such as social factors.
  And this is precisely because the issue at stake
  is the legitimacy of factors internal to science.

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Revolutions as Gestalt-switch

• Kuhn argues from history (Discovery of Uranus,
  electrostatic repulsion, Laviosiers O2 v.
  Priestleys dephlogisticated air, etc) that
  scientific revolutions shift perception much like
  the shift in perception of anomalous playing
  cards, the duck-rabbit or the Necker cube.
• Well, lets look at the Examples

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How revolutions morph into normal science

• Authority!
• As a paradigmatic case is accepted, it is taught
  to future scientists as if it had always been the
  case. There is little or no acknowledgement of
  the previously existing paradigm, or the crisis
  that sparked the paradigm shift in the first
  place.
• Anyone taught about pre-plate tectonic geology
  lately?

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• Plate tectonics was proposed by Alfred Wegener in
  1912.
• Evidence Fit of the E coastline of S. America
  with W. coastline of Africa.
• Similar plant animal fossils found on these two
  coasts
• Other unusual geological structures found in
  both places.
• Mechanism tidal pressure, centrifugal force.

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Why not?

• Forces too weak
• Forces would destroy, not maintain, coastline
  shapes via erosion
• Ocean floor would rip apart continents.
• (Harold Jeffereys)

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Evidence in support

• 1947 sediment on the Atlantic floor was less
  than predicted if floor was 4 bill years old (no
  continental movement).
• 1950s magnetic striping of rocks in middle of
  Atlantic crest. (suggested movement, but also
  expansion of globe)
• 1960s Evidence from earthquake analysis of the
  Pacific that earth was being sucked down, at
  the same rate as it was bubbling up in the
  Atlantic.

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Revolution

• 1975-1978 mechanism of floating continents
  proposed by Hess and Dietz.
• Consistent (based upon) convection theory of
  physics exemplifying interdisciplinary
  collaboration
• Suggested vast new research projects
• Explained earthquakes and volcanoes in ring of
  fire.
• Explained island arcs and mid-oceanic ridges.

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Points of contact with previous theories

1. In revolutionary science, auxiliary hypotheses
   operate to restrict the range of phenomena to be
   explained (100)
2. The positivistic laws are genuinely incompatible
   between paradigms (101) stated as a problem for
   positivists
3. Paradigms include not only a cognitive aspect,
   but a normative one. (109)

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Normative

• 2 claims
• A paradigm sets not only the criteria for a
  consistent theory, but the criteria for doing
  science.
• Judgments about previous paradigms are generally
  made in terms of rightness i.e. I once saw the
  moon as a planet, but I was mistaken. (Ch X)

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Corollaries

• Interpretation can only articulate a paradigm
  paradigms are not corrigible by normal science
  at all. (122)
• Why?

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Ch X

• Is filled with a whole bunch of what I consider
  bad philosophy of perception extrapolating
  widely from empirical evidence of underdetermined
  perception.
• The duck-rabbit shows that two men with the same
  retinal image can see different things

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Practicality

• The dominant model of training new scientists is
  the textbook. Textbooks truncate history and
  provide a sanitized story almost Orwellian in
  nature that the things that are true now have
  always been true, and will always continue to be
  true.

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Effects

• Students feel a part of a long-standing tradition
  The set of problems addressed by contemporary
  science is viewed as the same set of problems
  always considered scientific i.e. Alchemy as
  competitor to Chemistry
• Scientific history is seen as a linear process
  arriving at the present position. (138)

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Thus

• Textbook are tools of a post-revolutionary
  Orwellian movement to construct normal
  scientists thinkers who take the contemporary
  paradigm as all that ever was both cognitively
  and normatively.
• They are the basis of a normal science.

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Why would anyone rebel?

• I.e. test a paradigm Same as political a
  growing body of evidence that the system just
  isnt working. (Matthew Dowd)

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Side note (for Kuhn)

• During revolutionary periods, factors such as
  elegance neatness or simplicity of a theory
  have a profound effect on its acceptance (155)
• But aesthetic considerations are not enough
  there must be a crisis to get the problem
  started! (158)

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Implications

• Falsification Popper is operative during
  periods of revolutionary science.
• Verificationism Hempel (or something like it)
  is operative during normal science

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• Progressive v Degenerative although Kuhn doesnt
  use these terms matters for both revolutionary
  (settling which competitor will win) and normal
  (new avenues of research suggested).
• And, during revolutionary periods ANYTHING GOES

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So

• Kuhn agrees with Everyone!
• Happy happy joy joy!.

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Contemporary Examples

• Behaviorism -gt Cognitive science?
• Neuroscience replacing folk psychology?
• Linguistics!
• Note notice how the ID people have used Kuhns
  rhetoric to try to play the victim