What is This Thing Called Science?

304 Pages·2013·1.42 MB·English

by  Alan F. Chalmers

Alan Chalmers is Adjunct Associate Professor at the
University of Sydney, where he taught from 1971,
first in the School of Philosophy, and from 1987 in
the Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science,
which he was instrumental in setting up. Born in
Bristol, England, in 1939, he graduated in physics
at the University of Bristol in 1961, and received an
MSc in physics from the University of Manchester in
1964. He taught physics and the history of science for
two years before returning to full-time study at the
University of London, where he received his PhD in
history and philosophy of science in 1971. He was
elected a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities in
1997 and was a Visiting Scholar in the Philosophy
Department at Flinders University from 2000 to 2010.
Fourth edition
what
is this
thing
called
science?
AlAn
ChAlmers
What is this thing_Title.indd 1 26/09/12 3:42 PM
First published 1976 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Second edition 1982
Third edition 1999
Reprinted 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2010
Fourth edition 2013
www.uqp.com.au
[email protected]
© A.F. Chalmers 2013
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or
reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made
to the publisher.
Typeset in 10.5/12.5 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the
National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/
Chalmers, A.F. (Alan Francis), 1939– .
What is this thing called science? : an assessment of the nature and status of
science and its methods.
1. Science – Philosophy. I. Title.
4th ed.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
501
ISBN 978-0-7022-4963-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-7022-5087-3 (epub)
ISBN 978-0-7022-5088-0 (kindle)
ISBN 978-0-7022-5086-6 (epdf)
‘Like all young men I set out to be a
genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.’
Clea Lawrence Durrell

Contents
Preface to the first edition xi
Preface to the second edition xiii
Preface to the third edition xv
Preface to the fourth edition xvii
Introduction xix
1. Science as knowledge derived from the facts of
experience 1
A widely held commonsense view of science 1
Seeing is believing 4
Visual experiences not determined solely by the object viewed 5
Observable facts expressed as statements 9
Why should facts precede theory? 12
The fallibility of observation statements 14
Further reading 17
2. Observation as practical intervention 18
Observation: passive and private or active and public? 18
Galileo and the moons of Jupiter 20
Observable facts objective but fallible 23
Further reading 24
3. Experiment 25
Not just facts but relevant facts 25
The production and updating of experimental results 26
Transforming the experimental base of science: historical
examples 29
Experiment as an adequate basis for science 34
Further reading 37
4. Deriving theories from the facts: induction 38
Introduction 38
Baby logic 39
Can scientific laws be derived from the facts? 40
What constitutes a good inductive argument? 42
Further problems with inductivism 45
viii Contents
The appeal of inductivism 49
Further reading 54
5. Introducing falsificationism 55
Introduction 55
A logical point in favour of falsificationism 56
Falsifiability as a criterion for theories 57
Degree of falsifiability, clarity and precision 60
Falsificationism and progress 64
Further reading 68
6. Sophisticated falsificationism, novel predictions and
the growth of science 69
Relative rather than absolute degrees of falsifiability 69
Increasing falsifiability and ad hoc modifications 70
Confirmation in the falsificationist account of science 73
Boldness, novelty and background knowledge 75
Comparison of the inductivist and falsificationist view of
confirmation 77
Advantages of falsificationism over inductivism 78
Further reading 80
7. The limitations of falsificationism 81
Problems stemming from the logical situation 81
Falsificationism inadequate on historical grounds 84
The Copernican Revolution 86
Inadequacies of the falsificationist demarcation criterion and
Popper’s response 94
Further reading 96
8. Theories as structures I: Kuhn’s paradigms 97
Theories as structures 97
Introducing Thomas Kuhn 100
Paradigms and normal science 101
Crisis and revolution 104
The function of normal science and revolutions 109
The merits of Kuhn’s account of science 111
Kuhn’s ambivalence on progress through revolutions 113
Objective knowledge 115
Further reading 119
Contents ix
9. Theories as structures II: research programs 121
Introducing Imre Lakatos 121
Lakatos’s research programs 122
Methodology within a program and the comparison of
programs 126
Novel predictions 128
Testing the methodology against history 131
Problems with Lakatos’s methodology 134
Further reading 137
10. Feyerabend’s anarchistic theory of science 138
The story so far 138
Feyerabend’s case against method 139
Feyerabend’s advocacy of freedom 144
Critique of Feyerabend’s individualism 145
Further reading 147
11. Methodical changes in method 149
Against universal method 149
Telescopic for naked-eye data: a change in standards 151
Piecemeal change of theory, method and standards 155
A light-hearted interlude 158
Further reading 160
12. The Bayesian approach 161
Introduction 161
Bayes’ theorem 162
Subjective Bayesianism 164
Applications of the Bayesian formula 167
Critique of subjective Bayesianism 173
Further reading 177
13. The new experimentalism 179
Introduction 179
Experiment with life of its own 180
Deborah Mayo on severe experimental testing 184
Learning from error and triggering revolutions 187
The new experimentalism in perspective 190
Appendix: happy meetings of theory and experiment 194
Further reading 196
x Contents
14. Why should the world obey laws? 197
Introduction 197
Laws as regularities 198
Laws as characterisations of powers or dispositions 201
Thermodynamic and conservation laws 204
Further reading 208
15. Realism and anti-realism 209
Introduction 209
Global anti-realism: language, truth and reality 210
Anti-realism 214
Some standard objections and the anti-realist response 216
Scientific realism and conjectural realism 219
Idealisation 222
Unrepresentative realism or structural realism 224
Further reading 226
16. Epilogue to the third edition 227
Further reading 232
17. Postscript 233
Introduction 233
Confirmation by arguments from coincidence 235
Philosophical versus scientific knowledge of atoms 239
Independent evidence and the ‘theory-dependence of
observation’: Perrin’s experiments on Brownian motion 244
Partitioning of theories: atomism in nineteenth-century
chemistry 251
Realism versus anti-realism again 257
Strongly confirmed theories are never completely
discarded 258
Approximate truth is all we have 260
Levels of reality 264
Further reading 266
Notes 267
Bibliography 269
Index of names 278