What is this thing called science? Ch. 11

(Originally written November 14, 2006 in Book 8)

What is this thing called science?
Alan Chalmers

Chapter 11 - Methodological Changes in Method
[Against Universal Method]

Feyerabend made a strong case against the various accounts of scientific method by showing the incompatibility of these accounts and Galileo's advances in physics and astronomy.

Chalmers states that he takes issue with Feyerabend's historical accuracy, but states that the various scientific methods still fall short with the corrected history.

Feyerabend makes a strong case against a universal, ahistorical method of science.

Feyerabend represents one extreme: not method. Other methods represent the other extreme: dogmatic method.

Feyerabend gives no attack against a fluid, revisable method within any particular science.

Chalmers proposes that there is a middle ground between the two extremes. There are historically contingent methods and standards implicit in any successful science.

A common response to a middle-road approach is that if a scientific method is to change then it must be shown that it changes for the better to avoid extreme relativism. In order for there to be a way to show that any change is a change for the better there must be a standard to judge the standards. Any standard to judge the standards is a super standard or a universal, which Feyerabend thoroughly decimated.

John Worrall proposed an argument like this and concluded that there must be either a universal method or relativism.

[Telescopic for naked-eye data: a change in standards]

Aristotelian opponents of Galileo held that the senses and experience should be our guide in philosophizing and the criterion for science.

Aristotelians backed up the primacy of the senses with a teleological argument.

The Function of the senses was to provide us with information about the world. Because of this it makes no sense to believe that the senses systematically mislead us because that is the opposite of their function.

Galileo had to argue against this Aristotelian/Thomistic mind-set to introduce the telescope and telescopic data.

Feyerabend claims that Galileo resorted to propaganda and trickery to overcome this dilemma.

In fact though, Galileo used his hypothesis, not propaganda to prove his point. The dependence of irradiation is the test he used to change the mind-set of the scientific community. Galileo proved that the eye was misleading when it viewed small light sources (i.e. the stars, planets) at a distance. The telescope removes the irradiation and thus yields more reliable data.

[Piece meal change of theory, method and standards]

Galileo was able to convince his rivals in such a short time-span because he and his rivals showed a lot of common theoretical beliefs.

At any stage, a science will have some specific aims and some methods to meet their knowledge aims.

Science is like a web that grows and catches new things in it.

"Any part of the web of aims, methods, standards, theories, and observational facts that constitute a science at a particular time can be progressively changed, and the remaining part of the web will provide the background against which a case for the change can be made" (Chalmers, 170).

The entire web cannot change at once because the thing would collapse.

[A light hearted interlude]

Opponents of Chalmer's middle-road method would state that rival theorists appeal to some higher or more general standard if they shared aims. Thus there is a universal method (though unarticulated or inarticulate whatever)

Chalmers concedes that there is a common sense version of the universal scientific method. "Take argument and the available evidence seriously and do not aim for a kind of knowledge or a level of confirmation that is beyond the reach of available methods" (Chalmers, 171).

But this concession, if it is the end, all puts all philosophers of science out of business because the formulation this method could be done by anyone with any common sense.

Also once the common sense view has been stated, any further investigation will vary from science to science and be played against an historical backdrop.

An appreciation of the common sense view of the scientific method is sufficient enough to resist socialists and post-modernists who downplay the special status of science on the grounds that scientific knowledge panders to some special interest group.

Michael Mulkay, a post-modernist drew the conclusion that a sociological categorization of science is made necessary by the failure of what he terms the standard view