HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Scientific Progress, Rock Music, Center For American Progress
4 Oct 2017
School
Course
Professor
Document Summary
There is a debate among the questions being asked. Scientific realism: the history of science knows many episodes when a theory that had been accepted for centuries was eventually rejected and replaced by a new theory. Ie: geocentric astronomy: theory was accepted for 200 years and then abandoned- this is a historical fact. Question: given that even time-honoured theories become rejected, can we still claim that our current theories succeed in describing the world?- infallibilist question. Scientific realism: our best scientific theories correctly describe the nature of the mind- independent (external) world. Ie: molecule, atom, proton, electron, quark: the entities remain but the relation between the entities will change. Ex: law of gravity vs general relativity: the equations (structurally) have changed mathematically and also convey different meaning. Conclusion: the history of science shows that our knowledge of relations is changeable. Failure: these theories fail because they both represent a wrong headed approach- a selective approach.
