scholarly journals Closed Theories, Falsificationism and Non-Cumulative Progress

Problemos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Svitlana Firsova ◽  
Tetiana Bilorus ◽  
Herman Aksom
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Pessimistic Induction ◽  
Radical Theory ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Growth Of Knowledge ◽  
Horizontal View ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

It is argued that scientific progress occurs not with the cumulative growth of knowledge or when theories get closer to the truth but with discovering new domains and new theories that fit these domains. This horizontal view on the direction of scientific progress (in contrast to vertical, when we aim to get from here to the abstract and ephemeral truth) allows avoiding traditional objections posed by the incommensurability thesis and pessimistic induction, namely, that radical theory changes leave no room for progress. According to this perspective, the discovery of quantum mechanics as a new field of inquiry is a progress in itself, since this discovery had opened up a new distinctive domain of physics and a new theory that fits this domain. While some perspectives on scientific progress maintain that there is a need for correspondence between competing theories, we shift the emphasis from correspondence towards the discovery of new domains and new theories that apply to those domains. This approach allows overcoming the problem of theoretical discontinuity after scientific revolutions. Correspondence between theories is an important but not necessary condition for progress, while the falsifiability of theories as a means of demonstrating the boundaries of old theories and domains and beginnings of the new domains and theories (instead of being merely a means of refutation) is a necessary condition.

scholarly journals Revolutions in the earth sciences

1999 ◽  
Vol 354 (1392) ◽  
pp. 1915-1919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Allègre ◽  
Vincent Courtillot
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Statistical Physics ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
The Earth

The 20th century has been a century of scientific revolutions for many disciplines: quantum mechanics in physics, the atomic approach in chemistry, the nonlinear revolution in mathematics, the introduction of statistical physics. The major breakthroughs in these disciplines had all occurred by about 1930. In contrast, the revolutions in the so–called natural sciences, that is in the earth sciences and in biology, waited until the last half of the century. These revolutions were indeed late, but they were no less deep and drastic, and they occurred quite suddenly. Actually, one can say that not one but three revolutions occurred in the earth sciences: in plate tectonics, planetology and the environment. They occurred essentially independently from each other, but as time passed, their effects developed, amplified and started interacting. These effects continue strongly to this day.

Kuhn on architectural style

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-58
Author(s):  
David Wang
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
Architectural Style ◽  
Logical Positivist ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Common Parlance ◽  
Work Structure

By any measure Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a landmark in recent influential ideas. The very term ‘paradigm shift’, now common parlance, derives from this 1962 work. Structure redirected its own domain, the philosophy of science, from a logical positivist orientation in its evaluation of scientific progress to one that accommodates a complex mix of sociological, linguistic and psychological factors. Perhaps because of this interdisciplinary inclusiveness, Kuhn's insights have informed theory in many disciplines. A survey of the recent literature includes works in anthropology, comparative literature, criminal justice, art history, education and feminist studies.

The revolutions postponed

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-74
Author(s):  
Alexander Ruser ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Scientific Facts ◽  
New Evidence

Philosophers of Science have developed sophisti-cated models for explaining how scientific revolu-tions are brought about and more generally how scientists deal with facts that contradict pre-existing assumptions and theoretical concepts. Likewise historians of science and sociologists of knowledge have produced comprehensive studies on how scientific breakthroughs have sparked social revolution and how social factors fostered or hampered scientific developments. However, scientific revolutions and scientific “progress” always seem to be at the center of at-tention. The equally important question of why sometimes new evidence and contradicting evi-dence fail to trigger a scientific revolution has been largely neglected though. Improving our understanding of “called off” or “postponed” rev-olutions not only contributes to analyses of suc-cessful scientific revolutions. Understanding how defenders of the status quo manage to suppress new information and ignore scientific facts is cru-cial to understanding scientific and political con-troversy. This contribution therefore seeks to out-line a conceptual model for probing into the “black box” of scientific revoltions. In addition it will outline a potential framework for analyzing the survival of neoclassic economic theory after the global financial crisis.

scholarly journals On the relativistic quantum mechanics

1935 ◽  
Vol 150 (870) ◽  
pp. 411-415 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Relativistic Quantum ◽  
Affine Geometry ◽  
Relativistic Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Parallel Displacement

1-Affine geometry and sedenion algebra Let an infinitesimal displacement A µ at the point x µ be carried by parallel displacement to a point ( x µ + dx µ ). The most general possible continuous formula for the change of A µ is of the form d A µ = -Γ µ va A a dx v . Let Γ µ va = Γ µ av . This is the necessary condition for what is called affine Geometry.

scholarly journals Descriptions of Scientific Revolutions

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Kyle Cavagnini
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Paradigm Change ◽  
Scientific Revolutions ◽  
Structure Of Scientific Revolutions

The twentieth century saw extended development in the philosophy of science to incorporate contemporary expansions of scientific theory and investigation. Richard Rorty was a prominent and rather controversial thinker who maintained that all progress, from social change to scientific inquiry, was achieved through the redescription of existing vocabularies. However, this theory fails to describe revolutionary scientific progress. Thomas Kuhn’s theories of paradigm change, as first described in his seminal work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, better portray this process. I attempt to show this by applying Kuhn’s and Rorty’s views to examples of scientific progress and comparing the results.

scholarly journals The indeterminist objectivity of quantum mechanics versus the determinist subjectivity of classical physics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Hidden Variables ◽  
Classical Mechanics ◽  
Niels Bohr ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Max Born

Indeterminism of quantum mechanics is considered as an immediate corollary from the theorems about absence of hidden variables in it, and first of all, the Kochen – Specker theorem. The base postulate of quantum mechanics formulated by Niels Bohr that it studies the system of an investigated microscopic quantum entity and the macroscopic apparatus described by the smooth equations of classical mechanics by the readings of the latter implies as a necessary condition of quantum mechanics the absence of hidden variables, and thus, quantum indeterminism. Consequently, the objectivity of quantum mechanics and even its possibility and ability to study its objects as they are by themselves imply quantum indeterminism. The so-called free-will theorems in quantum mechanics elucidate that the “valuable commodity” of free will is not a privilege of the experimenters and human beings, but it is shared by anything in the physical universe once the experimenter is granted to possess free will. The analogical idea, that e.g. an electron might possess free will to “decide” what to do, scandalized Einstein forced him to exclaim (in a letter to Max Born in 2016) that he would be а shoemaker or croupier rather than a physicist if this was true. Anyway, many experiments confirmed the absence of hidden variables and thus quantum indeterminism in virtue of the objectivity and completeness of quantum mechanics. Once quantum mechanics is complete and thus an objective science, one can ask what this would mean in relation to classical physics and its objectivity. In fact, it divides disjunctively what possesses free will from what does not. Properly, all physical objects belong to the latter area according to it, and their “behavior” is necessary and deterministic. All possible decisions, on the contrary, are concentrated in the experimenters (or human beings at all), i.e. in the former domain not intersecting the latter. One may say that the cost of the determinism and unambiguous laws of classical physics, is the indeterminism and free will of the experimenters and researchers (human beings) therefore necessarily being out of the scope and objectivity of classical physics. This is meant as the “deterministic subjectivity of classical physics” opposed to the “indeterminist objectivity of quantum mechanics”.

scholarly journals Wielokulturowość a nauka

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4(61)) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Dorian Mączka
Keyword(s):  
Science Studies ◽  
Sociology Of Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Politics

Multiculturalism and Science The plurality of cultural perspectives is currently an important topic in the media, politics, the social and political sciences, philosophy, ethics, and even aesthetics. It is not, however, commonly associated with science and epistemology. That being said, many discussions about relations between culture(s) and science(s) have taken place in various fields of sociology of knowledge and science studies. In this paper, I refer to these discussions and present two possible understandings of the relation between multiculturalism and science: multiculturalism in science and multiculturalism of science. Multiculturalism in science denotes cultural plurality amongst researchers, while the more controversial idea of multiculturalism of science refers to multiculturalism as a necessary condition for epistemic and scientific progress. Following the presentation of these concepts, I discuss objectivistic objections against incorporating cultural elements into discussions about the merits of science. On the other hand, I also point out some dubious and dangerous antiscientific claims of radical relativists. Finally, drawing on pragmatic premises, I present a methodological argument for the multiculturalism of science.

Is there scientific progress in macroeconomics? The case of the NAIRU*

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-38
Author(s):  
Dany Lang ◽  
Mark Setterfield ◽  
Ibrahim Shikaki
Keyword(s):  
Phillips Curve ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Expected Inflation ◽  
Recent Developments

We address the question posed in the title of this paper by investigating recent developments in the literature that estimates the NAIRU. A necessary condition for the existence of a NAIRU is dynamic homogeneity: the Phillips curve should be homogeneous of degree one in lagged and/or expected inflation. But contemporary approaches to estimating the NAIRU typically assume rather than test for dynamic homogeneity, thus assuming (rather than testing for) the existence of a NAIRU. We argue that these developments remove the NAIRU from the domain of testable hypotheses and transform the concept into an article of faith. This does not constitute scientific progress.

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