UNDERDETERMINATION

Jojimar Sj. Julian

Ph. D. Science Education
 ANTICIPATION REACTION GUIDE
Put ̷ if u agree on the statement and x if you disagree on the statement.

Anticipation Statement Reaction

1. A unique theory is never dictated
by the evidence, not even if we had
all possible evidence
2. Given any amount of observational
evidence, there will be more than one
(indeed infinitely many) theories
compatible with that evidence
3. underdetermination refers to
situations where the evidence
available is insufficient to identify
which belief one should hold
about that evidence.
4. Entropy is a measure of the level
of disorder of a system.
5. The second law of
thermodynamics also predicts the
end of the universe.
Underdetermination
• In the philosophy of science,
underdetermination refers to
situations where the evidence
available is insufficient to identify
which belief one should hold about
that evidence.
Underdetermination
• is a thesis explaining that for any
scientifically based theory there will
always be at least one rival theory that is
also supported by the evidence given,
and that that theory can also be logically
maintained in the face of any new
evidence.
History
• Ancient Greek skeptics argued for
equipollence, the view that reasons for
and against claims are equally
balanced. This captures at least one
sense of saying that the claims
themselves are underdetermined.
History
• Underdetermination, again under
different labels, arises in the modern
period in the work of René Descartes.
Among other skeptical arguments,
Descartes presents two arguments
involving underdetermination.
History
• His dream argument points out that experiences
perceived while dreaming (for example, falling) do
not necessarily contain sufficient information to
deduce the true situation (being in bed). He
concluded that since one cannot always distinguish
dreams from reality, one cannot rule out the
possibility that one is dreaming rather than having
veridical experiences; thus the conclusion that one
is having a veridical experience is
underdetermined.
History
• His demon argument posits that all of one's
experiences and thoughts might be manipulated by a
very powerful and deceptive "evil demon". Once
again, so long as the perceived reality appears
internally consistent to the limits of one's limited ability
to tell, the situation is indistinguishable from reality
and one cannot logically determine that such a demon
does not exist.
Underdetermination and evidence
• To show that a conclusion is underdetermined,
one must show that there is a rival conclusion
that is equally well supported by the standards
of evidence. A trivial example of
underdetermination is the addition of the
statement "whenever we look for evidence" (or
more generally, any statement which cannot be
falsified).
Underdetermination and evidence
• For example, the conclusion "objects near earth fall
toward it when dropped" might be opposed by
"objects near earth fall toward it when dropped but
only when one checks to see that they do." Since
one may append this to any conclusion, all
conclusions are at least trivially underdetermined. If
one considers such statements to be illegitimate,
e.g. by applying Occam's Razor, then such "tricks"
are not considered demonstrations of
underdetermination.
• This concept also applies to scientific
theories: for example, it is similarly trivial
to find situations that a theory does
not address. For example, classical
mechanics did not distinguish
between non-accelerating reference
frames.
• As a result, any conclusion about
such a reference frame was
underdetermined; it was equally
consistent with the theory to say that
the solar system is at rest, as it is to
say that it moves at any constant
velocity in any particular direction.
• Newton himself stated that these
possibilities were indistinguishable.
More generally, evidence may not
always be sufficient to distinguish
between competing theories (or to
determine a different theory that will
unify both), as is the case with general
relativity and quantum mechanics.
• Another example is provided by Goethe's Theory of
Colours — "Newton believed that with the help of his
prism experiments, he could prove that sunlight was
composed of variously coloured rays of light.
Goethe showed that this step from observation to
theory is more problematic than Newton wanted to
admit. By insisting that the step to theory is not
forced upon us by the phenomena, Goethe revealed
our own free, creative contribution to theory
construction.
• And Goethe's insight is surprisingly significant, because he correctly
claimed that all of the results of Newton's prism experiments fit a
theoretical alternative equally well. If this is correct, then by
suggesting an alternative to a well-established physical theory,
Goethe developed the problem of underdetermination a century
before Duhem and Quine's famous arguments." (Mueller, 2016)[1]
Hermann von Helmholtz says of this — 'And I for one do not know
how anyone, regardless of what his views about colours are, can
deny that the theory in itself is fully consequent, that its
assumptions, once granted, explain the facts treated completely
and indeed simply'. (Helmholtz 1892)
Arguments involving underdetermination
• Arguments involving underdetermination attempt
to show that there is no reason to believe some
conclusion because it is underdetermined by the
evidence. Then, if the evidence available at a
particular time can be equally well explained by
at least one other hypothesis, there is no reason
to believe it rather than the equally supported
rival (although many other hypotheses may still
be eliminated).
• Because arguments involving
underdetermination involve both a claim
about what the evidence is and that such
evidence underdetermines a conclusion,
it is often useful to separate these two
claims within the underdetermination
argument as follows:
it is often useful to separate these two claims within the
underdetermination argument as follows:
• ll the available evidence of a certain type underdetermines
which of several rival conclusions is correct.
• Only evidence of that type is relevant to believing one of
these conclusions.
• Therefore, there is no evidence for believing one among the
rival conclusions.
• The first premise makes the claim that a theory is
underdetermined. The second says that rational decision
(i.e. using available evidence) depends upon insufficient
evidence.
General skeptical arguments[edit]

• Some skeptical arguments appeal to the fact that no

possible evidence could be incompatible with 'skeptical
hypotheses' like the maintenance of a complex illusion by
Descartes' evil demon or (in a modern version) the
machines who run the Matrix. A skeptic may argue that
this undermines any claims to knowledge, or even (by
internalist definitions), justification.
• Philosophers have found this argument very powerful. Hume
felt it was unanswerable, but observed that it was in practice
impossible to accept its conclusions. Influenced by this, Kant
held that while the nature of the 'noumenal' world was indeed
unknowable, we could aspire to knowledge of the 'phenomenal'
world. A similar response has been advocated by modern anti-
realists.
• Underdetermined ideas are not implied to be incorrect (taking
into account present evidence); rather, we cannot know if they
are correct.
 Philosophy of science[edit]
• In the philosophy of science, underdetermination is often
presented as a problem for scientific realism, which holds
that we have reason to believe in entities that are not
directly observable (such as electrons) talked about by
scientific theories. One such argument proceeds as
follows:
– All the available observational evidence for such entities underdetermines
the claims of a scientific theory about such entities.
– Only the observational evidence is relevant to believing a
scientific theory.
– Therefore, there is no evidence for believing what scientific
theories say about such entities.
• Particular responses to this argument attack
both the first and the second premise (1 and 2).
It is argued against the first premise that the
underdetermination must be strong and/or
inductive. It is argued against the second
premise that there is evidence for a theory's
truth besides observations; for example, it is
argued that simplicity, explanatory power or
some other feature of a theory is evidence for it
over its rivals.
• A more general response from the scientific realist is to
argue that underdetermination is no special problem for
science, because, as indicated earlier in this article, all
knowledge that is directly or indirectly supported by
evidence suffers from it—for example, conjectures
concerning unobserved observables. It is therefore too
powerful an argument to have any significance in the
philosophy of science, since it does not cast doubt
uniquely on conjectured unobservables.
UNDERDETERMINATIO IN PHYSICS
Entropy and Second law

• The second law of thermodynamics is one of the

most fundamental laws of nature, having profound
implications. In essence, it says this:
• The second law - The level of disorder in the
universe is steadily increasing. Systems tend to
move from ordered behavior to more random
behavior.
Entropy
• A measure of the level of disorder of a system is entropy,
represented by S. Although it's difficult to measure the total
entropy of a system, it's generally fairly easy to measure
changes in entropy. For a thermodynamic system involved in a
heat transfer of size Q at a temperature T , a change in entropy
can be measured by:
Aristotle versus Galileo