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most of those angry at scientists/mathematicians in culture war stuff don’t seem to care much about the first order content of science, so I think it’s good to be able to navigate meta talk of what science is and what scientists do
thread on some relevant issues (phil sci only):
thread on some relevant issues (phil sci only):
Demarcation. Hundreds of philosophers and scientists spent the 1900s trying to figure out what “science” is and what, if anything, distinguishes it from pseudoscience/non science. How’d that project turn out? See: https://philpapers.org/rec/LAUTDO-4 and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/
Realism. What do scientific theories and models say the world is like? Are they true in some sense? What does it even mean to say that a theory is “true?” Or, are theories and models merely empirically adequate? See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ and https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/
History. What should we think about science in light of its past? How different is what we call “science” now from what others have called “science” or “natural philosophy?” What should we say about discarded theories once considered true? Please recommend some texts, historians!
Method. Is the scientific method really that thing we teach to kids in grade school? Is there only one method, or do different fields follow different methods? Has method changed over time? See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/ and read Feyerabend (even if you, like me, disagree w/ him)
Theories. What the hell are they? What is their relation to data and models? How do we discover them in the first place? Wait, do we discover them at all, or are scientists more akin to artists? See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structure-scientific-theories/ and http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/11347/
Models. How different are they from theories? Why are some models theory driven and some phenomenological? What sort of epistemic roles do they play in scientific inquiry? Should we trust them as we do some theories? See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/ and http://www.stephanhartmann.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Hartmann_Models.pdf
Social structure. How is the institution of science set up? Do social values and norms infiltrate science? Should we care? How does consensus emerge? How should science inform policy? See:
Idealization and Approximation. Nature doesn’t admit nicely to attempts to model it. We have to make severe simplifications to get any soluble models, but what distortions do those simplifications introduce? See: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~weisberg/documents/threekindsfinal.pdf and https://academic.oup.com/bjps/article-abstract/70/1/179/4098118 and books:
Practice. What does the activity of science actually look like? This brings us, inevitably, to the case study. I won’t say anything about this as it’s far too complex and diverse. Some books I like (physics focused):
damn, I fucked up one of the links in the realism tweet...
Lots of fun topics like laws of nature, role of math in science, objectivity, theoretical virtues, explanation, understanding, etc. were left out. But I think it’s valuable to know what some interesting questions are!
Lots of fun topics like laws of nature, role of math in science, objectivity, theoretical virtues, explanation, understanding, etc. were left out. But I think it’s valuable to know what some interesting questions are!
