Arts and Science 3CF3

In each case, determine whether the statement made is TRUE or FALSE (it may perhaps be partially true), and give a brief justification for your answer: EXAMPLE: "0. Kuhn proposed that a paradigm could be directly falsified by a crucial experiment." ANSWER: 0. FALSE: The American historian of science Thomas Kuhn did describe science in terms of acceptance and rejection of paradigms, but he opposed the received view that they can be directly falsified by experiment. They are rather displaced over time by a rival paradigm, but possibly refuting phenomena will be interpreted differently in the different paradigms (paradigms can be "incommensurable"), preventing a rational comparison and decision in favour of one or the other. 1. N. R. Hanson argued that observation is prior to and independent of theory. 2. Van Fraassen holds that science aims to produce theories that are empirically adequate. 3. Kari Popper claimed to have refuted inductivism.. 4. Nancy Cartwright argues that the truth of theoretical laws can be established by the success of the theory in which they occur. 5. Laudan holds that science progresses ever closer to the truth by the cumulative retention of confirmed consequences of earlier theories. 6. "Social Constructivism" is the name given to one faction in the "Science Wars". 7. The "hard core" of a scientific research programme is directly open to refutation. 8. Salmon proposed the "covering law" model of scientific explanation. 9. According to Hacking's experimental realism, theories refer to real things if they are confirmed by experiment. 10. According to some sociologists of knowledge, reality is a consequence of the settlement of a dispute, not its cause. 11. In his Mismeasure of Man Gould aimed to show how factual reality is constructed from the a priori prejudices of scientists. 12. On Pitt's model, scientific progress is a consequence of changes in the technological infrastructure of science. 13. According to Popper's methodology of science, evolution by natural selection is a good example of a scientific theory. 14. Nicholas Rescher argues that moral values are inherent in the practice of science. Subsection B1 1. Compare and contrast the rival accounts of the progress of scientific research given by Popper and Kuhn. How have contributions made by other thinkers helped to clarify the issues involved? 2. The revolution in geology brought about by plate tectonics fits Lakatos's analysis of scientific change better than its rivals. Discuss. 3. Discuss (with attributions) the relative merits of the various rival theories of scientific explanation. 4. What, if anything, constitutes scientific progress? Discuss with reference to the various philosophies of science we have considered in this course. Subsection B2 5 . "Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it."-Gould, Mismeasure, p. 54. Discuss by reference to the various case studies and theories of science we have considered in this course. 6. Describe the main objections that have been raised against scientific realism, with attributions. Can these objections be countered, and if so how? 7. Evaluate Brown's claim that the main line of debate in the philosophy of science is not so much between realists and social constructivists as between those who believe that scientific knowledge is objective and those who believe it is subjective. 8 . Can science be objective, and if so, in what sense? Discuss by reference to Gould's critiques of polygeny, craniometry, and IQ testing.