DESCRIPTION OF INTERACTIVE
Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, claimed that scientific knowledge progressed in paradigm shifts rather than in a linear progression because it required scientists to open up to new ways of understanding. This would mean that scientific progress is not solely objective. Consensus must be met by the scientific community, and only then does the worldview change and become the prevailing way of seeing.
There may be silencing of dissenting voices and alternate worldviews that rebuke the norm or challenge the current truths.
Karl Popper argued that falsifiability is both the hallmark of scientific theories, and is the proper methodology for scientists to employ in search of the truth. In his publication, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he proposed that scientists should regard their theories with skepticism, and experiment, not with the aim of proving their theories - because no number of experiments can ever prove a theory - but to test to see if their theories are falsifiable, as a single contradicting experiment can invalidate a theory’s worthiness. Popper's approach was based on the naturalistic idea that society has developed a process of solving problems using trial and error - rejecting any theory that is falsified and accepting those that withstand empirical testing and rational criticism. This method of falsification - also known as Critical Rationalism - rejected inductive reasoning as part of the scientific method.
The falsification-based approach to scientific methodology is no longer widely accepted within the philosophy of science for the reason that it does not represent proper scientific practice. Failure of a hypothesis rarely leads to a scientist giving up on a theory. Inductive reasoning has its place in the scientific method as it is used to form hypotheses and theories. Without inductive reasoning, all premises, however unlikely, would be accepted as truths.
Paul Feyerabend’s 1975, publication, Against Method, was a criticism of the philosophy of science, itself. He argued against any rationalist attempts to lay down rules, even those of the scientific method. He was highly critical of Popper and his critical rationalism, proposing that science was an anarchistic enterprise: it should allow scientists to do whatever they needed to in order to come up with new ideas and persuade others to accept them. According to Feyerabend, there is no idea, however ancient and absurd, that is not capable of improving our knowledge.
Popper proposed critical rationalism as a way to deter pseudoscience. If scientists are allowed to flagrantly brush aside proper methodology - as Feyerabend suggests - doesn’t this leave science open to the use of unproven theories and hypotheses promoted as truth?
In her 1983 collection of essays entitled, How the Laws of Physics Lie, Nancy Cartwright claims that the fundamental laws of modern physics - the high-level theories - do not directly represent physical systems. The laws can be applied to idealized circumstances or to models, but they do not describe what really exists.
If the models are flawed and only represent the exception rather than the norm, then how can we build our knowledge upon a fictional foundation?
Evelyn Fox Keller is one of the pioneers of the feminist philosophy of science. In her 1985 book, Reflections on Gender and Science, she asks why objectivity and reason are characterized as male, while subjectivity and feeling are seen as female. Fox Keller questions whether such a characterization affects the goals and methods of scientific enquiry. The essays contained in Reflections were the culmination of ten years of analysis of the historical, psychological, and philosophical aspects of the role gender played in science.
Fox Keller examines how historically, the discipline of Science was predominantly male. Even during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, while men were scientists, women were accused of witchcraft. We are therefore missing the voices of women: would the lens through which we observe natural phenomena be different if the foundation of scientific knowledge was, at its very beginning, gender-free?
How much of what we know is actually socially constructed? In Ian Hacking’s 1999 book, The Social Construction of What?, he questions the validity of what we know, especially in the area of the natural sciences. He talks about the contentious account of reality: in a sense, what lens and whose lenses are we using to view the world around us? He presents examples such as whether our advancements in science are really the byproducts of weapons research.
Much like Descartes, who questioned if what he knew was actually real, Hacking is asking us to question if what we know is merely reality by consensus.
All periods of history have certain underlying epistemological assumptions that determine what is acceptable. In Michel Foucault’s 1966 publication, The Order of Things, he focuses on three areas: biology, economics, and linguistics. He develops the notion of ‘episteme’ - a term meaning ‘to know, to understand’ - and proposes that conditions of truth or discourse change over time. What is acceptable and true in one period is not necessarily the same in another. There are shifts in the consciousness on which we base our knowledge.
Foucault's episteme is very similar to Thomas Kuhn's notion of a paradigm. Foucault speaks of deconstructing knowledge, similar to engaging in an archeological dig. What is the foundation of the knowledge? Where did it come from? While understanding where ideas originate, does knowing the history of ‘edits’ lead us into a quagmire - isn’t it a sign of progress that, as we learn new information, it will change our way of thinking?