Republic of the Philippines Course Code: GE 7

LUGAIT COLLEGE Course Title: Science and Technolog

UPPER TALACOGON, LUGAIT, MISAMIS ORIENTAL Unit: 3 (lecture)
2nd Semester AY 2021– 2022
Instructor: ALIDANGIE M. GABE, PhD Subject Schedule:
MWF at 5:30- 6:30 PM
Mobile Number:09957036579/09915061575 Facebook Group:
Science and Technology
e-mail:[email protected] Messenger Group Chat:

Contact Schedule: ( Time that the students can contact

you)

Module 2
Topic: Desired Learning Outcomes:
Chapter 1 INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS THAT DEFINED SOCIETY  Discuss the philosophy of science
a. How can science defined
b. Some Intellectuals and their Revolutionary Ideas
Duration: 3 hours
DISCUSSION

The
philos
ophy
of
scienc
e

The philosophy of science is a field

that deals with what science is, how
it works, and the logic through
which we build scientific knowledge.

In this website, we present a rough

synthesis of some new and some
old ideas from the philosophy of
science.

 
In this website, we use a practical checklist to get a basic picture of what science is
and a flexible flowchart to depict how science works. For most everyday purposes,
this gives us a fairly complete picture of what science is and is not. However, there is
an entire field of rigorous academic study that deals specifically with what science is,
how it works, and the logic through which we build scientific knowledge. This branch
of philosophy is handily called the philosophy of science. Many of the ideas that we
present in this website are a rough synthesis of some new and some old ideas from
the philosophy of science.
Despite its straightforward name, the field is complex and remains an area of current
inquiry. Philosophers of science actively study such questions as:

 What is a law of nature? Are there any in non-physical sciences like

biology and psychology?

 What kind of data can be used to distinguish between real causes and

accidental regularities?

 How much evidence and what kinds of evidence do we need before we

accept hypotheses?

 Why do scientists continue to rely on models and theories which they

know are at least partially inaccurate (like Newton's physics)?

Though they might seem elementary, these questions are actually quite difficult to
answer satisfactorily. Opinions on such issues vary widely within the field (and
occasionally part ways with the views of scientists themselves — who mainly spend
their time doing science, not analyzing it abstractly). Despite this diversity of opinion,
philosophers of science can largely agree on one thing: there is no single, simple way
to define science!

Though the field is highly specialized, a few touchstone ideas have made their way
into the mainstream. Here's a quick explanation of just a few concepts associated
with the philosophy of science, which you might (or might not) have encountered.

 Epistemology — branch of philosophy that deals with what knowledge

is, how we come to accept some things as true, and how we justify that
acceptance.

 Empiricism — set of philosophical approaches to building knowledge

that emphasizes the importance of observable evidence from the natural
world.

 Induction — method of reasoning in which a generalization is argued to

be true based on individual examples that seem to fit with that
generalization. For example, after observing that trees, bacteria, sea
anemones, fruit flies, and humans have cells, one
might inductively infer that all organisms have cells.

 Deduction — method of reasoning in which a conclusion is logically

reached from premises. For example, if we know the current relative
positions of the moon, sun, and Earth, as well as exactly how these
move with respect to one another, we can deduce the date and location
of the next solar eclipse.

 Parsimony/Occam's razor — idea that, all other things being equal,

we should prefer a simpler explanation over a more complex one.

 Demarcation problem — the problem of reliably distinguishing science

from non-science. Modern philosophers of science largely agree that
there is no single, simple criterion that can be used to demarcate the
boundaries of science.

 Falsification — the view, associated with philosopher Karl Popper, that

evidence can only be used to rule out ideas, not to support them. Popper
proposed that scientific ideas can only be tested through falsification,
never through a search for supporting evidence.

 Paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions — a view of science,

associated with philosopher Thomas Kuhn, which suggests that the
history of science can be divided up into times of normal science (when
scientists add to, elaborate on, and work with a central, accepted
scientific theory) and briefer periods of revolutionary science. Kuhn
asserted that during times of revolutionary science, anomalies refuting
 the accepted theory have built up to such a
point that the old theory is broken down and a
new one is built to take its place in a so-called
"paradigm shift."

Who's who in the philosophy of science

If you're interested in learning more about the philosophy of
science, you might want to begin your investigation with
some of the big names in the field:

Aristotle (384-322 BC) — Arguably the founder of both

science and philosophy of science. He wrote extensively
about the topics we now call physics, astronomy, psychology,
biology, and chemistry, as well as logic, mathematics, and
epistemology. Aristotle

Francis Bacon (1561�1626) — Promoted a scientific method

in which scientists gather many facts from observations
and experiments, and then make inductive inferences about
patterns in nature.

Rene Descartes (1596�1650) — Mathematician, scientist,

and philosopher who promoted a scientific method that
emphasized deduction from first principles. These ideas, as
well as his mathematics, influenced Newton and other figures
of the Scientific Revolution.

Piere Duhem (1861�1916) — Physicist and philosopher who

defended an extreme form of empiricism. He argued that we
cannot draw conclusions about the existence of unobservable
entities conjectured by our theories such as atoms and
molecules.
Rene Descartes

Carl Hempel (1905-1997) — Developed influential theories of

scientific explanation and theory confirmation. He argued
that a phenomenon is "explained" when we can see that it is
the logical consequence of a law of nature. He championed a
hypothetico-deductive account of confirmation, similar to the
way we characterize "making a scientific argument" in this
website.

Karl Popper (1924-1994) — Argued that falsifiability is both

the hallmark of scientific theories and the proper
methodology for scientists to employ. He believed that
scientists should always regard their theories with a skeptical
eye, seeking every opportunity to try to falsify them.

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) — Historian and philosopher who

argued that the picture of science developed by logical
empiricists such as Popper didn't resemble the history of
science. Kuhn famously distinguished between normal
science, where scientists solve puzzles within a particular Carl Hempel
framework or paradigm, and revolutionary science, when the
paradigm gets overturned.

Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) — A rebel within the

philosophy of science. He argued that there is no scientific
method or, in his words, "anything goes." Without regard to
rational guidelines, scientists do whatever they need to in
order to come up with new ideas and persuade others to
accept them.

Evelyn Fox Keller (1936-) — Physicist, historian, and one of

the pioneers of feminist philosophy of science, exemplified in
her study of Barbara McClintock and the history of genetics in
the 20th century.

Elliott Sober — Known for his work on parsimony and the

conceptual foundations of evolutionary biology. He is also an
important contributor to the biological theory of group Evelyn Fox Keller
selection.

Nancy Cartwright (1944-) — Philosopher of physics known for

her claim that the laws of physics "lie" — i.e., that the laws of
physics only apply in highly idealized circumstances. She has
also worked on causation, interpretations of probability and
quantum mechanics, and the metaphysical foundations of
modern science.

Nancy Cartwright
 
ASSESSMENT TASK:

A. Explain Science in different perspectives.

B. Discuss how the ideas postulated by some intellectuals contributed in the society.
C. Discuss what makes someone a good scientist.
D. Identify scientists and their contributions.