Philosophy of science is an important topic for philosophers, science communicators, scientists, and educators at all levels. I have discovered this as I have been reading various items in the philosophy of science over the past year, and I also audited a philosophy of science course in fall 2021. Philosophy of science attempts to answer various questions that science itself does not aim to, nor can, answer. For example, philosophers of science ask questions like, 1) what distinguishes science from non-science or pseudoscience (called the demarcation problem), 2) are scientific theories (approximately) true, 3) what makes a good scientific theory or explanation, 4) why and how do scientific theories change over time, or 5) what is the nature of scientific laws? Besides these key questions there are plenty of other interesting questions worth exploring, such as whether or not chemistry and/or biology reduces to fundamental physics, what explains the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants, or for my own research, what are the philosophical implications or assumptions behind my own research’s use of density functional theory, which makes some substantial (inaccurate) assumptions about reality, such as independent particles, that all relevant information in the wave function is in the electron density, and more. Just as a case study, I will reflect on my journey on the question of whether scientific theories are (approximately) true, which is the debate between scientific realism or antirealism. There is a spectrum of views on trial here within the realism and antirealism camps, as seen in the diagram below. Another related question (that is also grouped under realism vs antirealism) is whether we are justified in believing those scientific theories as true. The average person is a scientific realist: our best scientific theories are (at least approximately) correct, and we should believe they accurately describe reality. In the words of my philosophy of science professor, “Every single one of you was a realist before you walked through that door this semester.” In philosophy, however, naïve realism won’t fly. You better be able to give a good reason (or, preferably, an argument) to believe anything. Before reading any philosophy of science, I was a comfortable naïve realist. Of course, scientific theories are true! Why wouldn’t you think so?
I’m glad you asked. One reason is to look at the history of scientific theories: they’ve all been wrong in the past! All non-contemporary theories were false theories. Even worse, they were very empirically successful theories and led to many discoveries and predictions, resulting in great technological advancements. And yet, strictly speaking, they (e.g. Newtonian mechanics of phlogiston theory of combustion) are false. They do not accurately describe reality. This argument from the history of science is called pessimistic meta-induction (it is doing induction over the history of scientific theories, so a form of meta-induction). At the same time, how could a scientific theory make such accurate predictions unless it were, in fact, true? Or, to contend with the historical graveyard of scientific theories, approximately true, since at least Newtonian mechanics is correct to an approximation (for velocities much smaller than the speed of light). This argument is called the no miracles argument, since it would be a miracle if scientific theories would be so predictively accurate and yet false. Yet, why should we think that there is a necessary connection between predictive accuracy and truth? Perhaps scientific theories do not aim for truth in the first place, but just aim solely for predictive accuracy in order to get things like technological outcomes. This argument thus assumes that predictive accuracy as a way to judge between theories confers justification on that theory (i.e. is an epistemic theoretical virtue), which is exactly the question at hand. In other words, the no miracles argument begs the question. After coming to this realization, I knew I had my work cut out for me to defend scientific realism. It seems like, rather than appealing to the history of science to defend realism, we would need to appeal to a priori (from reason) facts to justify realism and avoid begging the question. In the end, I think realism is defensible because of a priori truths that support the epistemic (i.e. justification-conferring) nature of the theoretical virtues, such as consistency, empirical accuracy, and explanatory power. In order to evaluate each virtue individually, we need to consider a general principle for justification (which here is going to be to find its associated a priori principle) and think through each virtue and whether there is something unique about it that would make it different than the rest (i.e. find a symmetry-breaker between the two). Consistency is supported by the truth of the law of non-contradiction, so theories that do not contradict themselves are more likely to be true. Theories that are greater supported by evidence (i.e. greater empirical accuracy) are more likely than true because of probability theory, as in P(T|E) > P(T), P() is probability, and T is theory, E is evidence. Finally, explanatory power is an epistemic theoretical virtue because of a principle of sufficient reason, which says that contingent (scientific) truths have an explanation, and this truth is a necessary a priori truth. Arguing the points above is precisely the point of one of the essays that I wrote for my philosophy of science course last semester. It was difficult yet exciting to attempt to justify the very nature and truthfulness of science that I had so naively believed for so long. Although I had already been exposed to the self-defeating nature of the view called scientism, which says that science is the only (or best) way of knowing anything, this new challenge to science was deeper. Every scientist needs to reckon with this. There are serious and knowledgeable scientists and philosophers at both ends of the spectrum pictured above. There are profound questions lurking at the foundations of science that cannot be answered by stomping your feet with the anti-philosophical boot of Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins. Bill Nye, while originally disparaging of philosophy, began to appreciate it after reading some of it (because he was lambasted for some wild comments he made on it). There is no experiment that can currently answer the question of the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, and there is no experiment that answer the question of the nature of scientific laws or the truth value of scientific theories. Philosophers of science have made great progress in exploring arguments for and against the relevant positions, and scientists would do well to read some of the latest philosophy of science, and not just the 20th century work of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. My Thought Process To attempt to be more reflective than informative, I will discuss my process of trying to answer the question of ‘why should we think that scientific theories are true?’ First, why am I asking this question? One of events that most helped me think more deeply was a graduate seminar in ethics I audited in spring 2021. It was me (who has only taken one previous philosophy course and audited one other) with six philosophy PhD students (who typically had a BA and/or MA in philosophy). The professor led this course in a way that challenged my critical thinking well beyond my previous experience, and I loved it. Anytime we gave a positive argument for something, the professor would ask us, “But why should we think that?” Further, he did not let us agree with him and got ‘upset’ when we agreed with him too easily. I remember one time in particular when he challenged one student’s claim, she conceded, “I think you’re right.” He replied, “No, no, no, never say that.” These experiences (and others like it) in philosophy have shaped my ability to think more rigorously, including about why trust science as getting at truth in the first place. One final note is that I have seen in Idea Puzzle that philosophy of science can be applied to any scientific research by forming a coherent research framework that can be used in any scientific discipline. It helps you think through questions that are helpful (but not easy) to help get a grasp on the full picture, motivation, and potential issues with your research project. This could be applied to a specific paper or thesis or a research program. Since TAMU does not have institutional access, I could only try a few things. The questions are difficult to answer but rewarding to think through. Overall, philosophy of science has greatly increased my understanding of the nature of science, and it has forced me to think through deep questions on the implications and presuppositions of my research, and it also enables more clear thinking through my research methodology. It will also ensure that I do not end up saying embarrassingly incorrect things about the implications of my research, which scientists are prone to do whenever they make philosophical claims, such as those about free will, God’s existence, or ethics.
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