What do you think of Hempel’s thoughts on best practices?

PNS 3-4

Now that we have the basics, Hempel is going to fill out the story for us. Chapters 3-4 give us a lot to think about.
Testability is very important for Hempel. Remember that his foundations are in logical process and empiricism (connection to sense data). If you can’t test your hypothesis, it is nonsense. But what does this mean?
so, things to think about:
Testing Hypotheses. There is a lot to unpack here. What are we testing? Testing in practice -v- in principle? Are all tests the same?
Confirmation and Acceptability. Again, so much… How do we (try to) confirm one hypothesis over another competing one? (or just confirm that we think it is correct, regardless of other contenders). What do you think of Hempel’s thoughts on best practices? Can we ever completely (logically) confirm a hypothesis? What does this say about certainty?

PNS 5-6 Laws and Theories

These chapters finish the story for the traditional model of science (we will come back to 7 and 8 later in the course).
Hempel has shown us how we find, test, and confirm hypotheses, he has tied science to logical reasoning, he has set out our goals, etc, but until now we have been missing one thing, laws. Here is where Hempel lays out what they are, how they are important, and why they are a total mess that brings the whole project to the brink of disaster (at best).
He also talks about connecting all of this theoretical mess to the real world by means of bridging principles. These will allow Hempel to talk about the things we see and things that we can’t (what he calls theoretical entities). We will come back to theoretical entities later in the course, but bridging principles will do some work for Hempel. So, questions about them are totally fair game.

Kuhn SSR ch 1-5 (Asynch. video lecture posted)

Kuhn starts out asking whether the traditional method of science gives us what it claims it can, and whether that model solves the problems it should. This is a great point for questions: do you accept Kuhn’s premises? (should Science be able to do these things? has it failed?)
Next Kuhn says that he will present a different way of thinking about science. To do this, he will introduce what makes a field into a science (what does it take for a field to become a science), and talk about the characteristics of science.
Look for terms like ‘Normal Science’ and ‘Paradigms.’ What are they? What is their role in science? What impact to they have on science?

Kuhn SSR Ch 6-10

Now that we know what normal science is, does that tell us all of the story?
Given the title of Kuhn’s book, clearly not.
What are Revolutions?
How do they form/happen?
What do they mean for science?
How are they resolved and what does that resolution mean?

Bachelard

We have seen two different ways of conceptualizing science so far, one that sees science as foundational to our understanding of the world, and another that sees a number of factors (unconscious or conscious) that influence the science (and world) that we see and practice.
Here we will go into a very different perspective, one that turns much of what we think of science on its head.

One interesting point to think about is the relationship between science and technology.
For Hempel, technology is one of the ways that we move from explanation sketch to complete explanation (think about why this is)
For Kuhn, technology is the way to save a paradigm (normal science) from falling too far into an anomaly, solving a problem that might otherwise touch off a revolution (again, think about why/how that works)
But what about Bachelard? Does Science create technology? Does technology create (one sort of) science? What is going on here?

Yoruba Medicine and Western Science

There are lots of good questions here (and I think, less need for background). We have come a long distance from Hempel, and can ask questions about the nature of science (what does science mean? Can it have more than one meaning? etc) or we can stick closely to the article (definition(s) of medicine, connections between the lived life (metaphysics) and explorations of the world (epistemology/PHL SCI), questions of how to (or if we can) orient Yaruba medicine with western medicine, etc).

Brister – On Scientific Advocacy (Frontiers Chapter 11)

What role should (do) values play in science? Sure, we value truth, objectivity, repeatability, etc… Values we generally associate with science are sometimes called ‘cognitive values’
But what else do we value? We value body autonomy, which is one reason that we don’t do medical experiments on unwilling participants. We value freedom, equality, liberty, money, fame, and many other things that may or may not impact the science we do. These are generally called ‘non cognitive values.’ (we can talk about problems with this distinction, too)
In this chapter Brister surveys a number of positions on engaging with values. Lots to discuss. Do you find any of the positions compelling? not so much? What do you think of Brister’s conclusion? Can Scientific advocacy be done without the scientist falling into dangerous epistemological positions?

PEW study

No background needed here. take a look at the summary and chapter 2 (and anything else you find interesting). We will talk about this study, now that you have spent a good amount of time thinking about these issues from the perspectives of both science producer and consumer.
Anything especially interesting, surprising, dismaying, hopeful, etc that you want to discuss? Let’s see it.

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