What is this thing called science? Ch. 13 (A)

(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 8)

What is this thing called science?
Chapter 13 - The New Experimentalism

Introduction:

If the Bayesian account of scientific inference failed, we have not proven much at all about the characterization of what is distinctive about science.

Popper used theory-dependence of observation to poke holes in positivism and inductivism. Popper's account was, however, unable to prove what was falsified: a theory or a part of a theory.

Corrections to Popper's account, like Kuhn and Lakatos became even more theory-dependent. Bayesianism is also a theory-dependent case and suffers the same problems.

Feyerabend saw this and chucked science and took it off its pedestal.

Modern philosophers of science are split; but, some of them are attempting to get off the theory-dependent train without returning to positivism's naive belief in the reliability of sense-datum.

If scientific progress is the steady build-up of experimental knowledge then the philosophy of science's notion of science as being the accumulation of facts can be reinstated in a way that is not destroyed by old arguments.

[Experiment with life of its own]

If experiment is the basis for science then a theory-dependent or fallible account of science is unnecessary and wrong.

Knowledge of the experimental factors can be more valuable then theoretical knowledge.

[Deborah Mayo on severe experimental testing]

Mayo focuses on the detailed way in which claims are validated by experiment.

She holds that a claim can only be said to be borne out of experiment if the claim has been severely tested by experiment and has never been shown to be false