Reddit reviews Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction

I see a lot of people making this mistake today; sometimes even some Muslims ask questions about a particular scientific issue and how Islam fits with it. Science says X therefore Islam must also say X, otherwise Islam is wrong. People who view science as a perfect representation of reality should really invest in studying the philosophy of science. (Good brief introduction book). Read what Thomas Kuhn said about scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts. Learn about the history of the scientific method and the mistake of scientism.

edit: Also check out Asadullah Ali who briefly talks about this subject in this lecture and Daniel Haqiqatjou who specializes in this area as well.

In all fairness

> knowledge of philosophy, so I was thinking that reading in that area may be helpful but I wouldn't know where to start.

If you're looking for a primer on the philosophy of science, Oxford University Press has a great introductory book (in fact, many of the "Very Short Introductions" are worth a read).

There is also, of course, the classic "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn that questions the supposed linearity of scientific progress.

That's literally the quickest reply I've received on this site, you must be seriously butthurt.

Here's a good book to get you started https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0192802836/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467569253&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=philosophy+of+science

Happy reading!

Yes, absolutely. Science (and each one of us) need to make these extrapolations in order to operate in the universe. But you need to tread carefully on your statements.

You can reason with deduction:

All Frenchmen like red wine.
Pierre is a Frenchman.
Therefore, Pierre likes red wine.

The first two lines are premisses, the last is the conclusion. If the premisses are true, than so is the conclusion. This is deduction.

However, the following is not deduction:

The first five eggs in the box were rotten.
All the eggs have the same best-before date stamped on them.
Therefore, the sixth egg will be rotten.

This seems reasonable, but it is not deduction. It is induction. It is entirely possible that the next egg is just fine. But odds are it's not.

I am not disagreeing with you. I'm just pointing out some of the finer nuances of scientific reasoning. The examples I found are from here, a really great introduction into the subject.

>"Does removing the heart kill a person?" Well only on the subject we've tested - but that doesn't mean that the next heart removal won't leave the person alive!

You can know this deductively:

The heart pumps blood through the body.
A human needs blood flowing in order to keep living.
Therefore, the human needs a heart (or something else that pumps blood) in order to keep living.

But something like this is not deductive:

People claim to have spiritual encounters with God.
It is shown that spiritual encounters can be fudged with chemistry and magnets.
Therefore, all spiritual encounters come from chemistry and magnets.

Am I making sense?

I think S. Blackburn's Think is an excellent introduction to some of the major areas in philosophy. You might also what to look at some of the philosophical books in the "Very Short Introduction" series, for example the Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Philosophy of Science and Free Will ones, which as you can guess are good places to start.

A book I quite enjoyed as an introduction to the great philosophers was The Philosophy Book, which not only gave clear descriptions of each of the philosophers' views, but also often gave a clear flowchart summary of their arguments.

If you want a shorter, concise but very good introduction try Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction by Samir Okasha. I found it very useful at university. (www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Science-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192802836)

I think you missed where he didn't support the article one way or another and was actually saying it's wrong to just dismiss something because it doesn't fit what you have decided is true.

Which, at the heart of it, is a restatement of the scientific method. Test and retest. The whole point is to prove yourself wrong and to do everything in your power to disprove a thesis. If it holds true through enough testing, you can assume it's pretty true. But scientists are supposed to be fundamentally agnostic about whatever it is they believe so as to welcome new theories. This doesn't really happen -- it's an ideal.

But at the very least, you can read two sides of an issue as objectively as possible instead of succumbing to the hivemind mentality of "this is true because one person in my preferred peer group has argued it well."

Also, for anybody interested in a more philosophical take on this, this is a pretty cool little book. They all are actually. Any layman introductory physics book usually has a pretty succinct explanation of scientific community, being scientifcally agnostic, and how harmful "popular" science has been since it took for fucking ever for even Einstein to reject to idea of a static universe because it didn't fit what he believed in.

> There you go assuming scienism again.

I wasn't assuming anything I literally asked what you meant by evidence in that context.

> Who has that belief though? I see people claim that others have that belief, but I have never seen anyone say they do.

Loads of people, its a common fallacy I've met tons in person and its literally everywhere online. Not everyone is going to be a hard materalist (thinking literally everything can be proved) but to deny that there aren't people who misuse the scientific method for things it isn't meant for is absurd. This is becoming a tautology, I literally started this by claiming that some atheist try and reduce the question of god to one of science (to answer the question as to why theist and atheist often can't discuss with each other) if you can't concede that point then I recommend reading this.
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836

> It does not fly in the face of physics, it is physics. If you consider for a moment that currently accepted physics isn't entirely accurate and more of an approximation, you should also be able to consider that there is more to the equation than what is currently being taught.

I have an degree in physics from an elite school, where I won an award for my performance in physics. From this same school, I also have an honors degree in philosophy - where I focused primarily on philosophy of science.

I don't know how to be any more clear about this. I have studied the shit out of both the actual physics and the philosophy of science that you are totally mangling when you say stuff like:

> It does not fly in the face of physics, it is physics. If you consider for a moment that currently accepted physics isn't entirely accurate and more of an approximation, you should also be able to consider that there is more to the equation than what is currently being taught.

All I can think of is the quote from Isaac Asimov:

> My answer to him was, "John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

You have yet to read, obviously, about any of realism, positivism, anti-realism, agential realism or any rigorous philosophy of science. You are taking a pretty "anti-realist" stance - which, again, is not terribly popular. And I am saying, time and time again, you are not even really doing so very well. Not only am I denying that the anti-realist stance is a very good one, I am saying that, even if it were, you are not doing a very good job of defending it. Your entire argument, at this point, is coming down to the exact same argument as the one people use when the criticize evolution or global warming for being "just theories."

Relativity is never going to be overturned - at least not the features of it we are discussing here tonight. Ever. End of story - full stop.

We may learn of theories that augment or supplement relativity, for instance, a way to unify relativity and quantum gravity - that explain areas that are currently not covered by relativity, such as where it breaks down, but for the cases that relativity covers now, it covers it with literally perfect accuracy. Check out the "fine structure constant." It has been measured to resolutions that approach theoretical limitation.

So, what I am saying to you is this: that space and time are parts are the same, objectively existing reality is really well fucking proven. You can, in fact, measure the fine structure constant with a fucking hydrogen spectrum tube, a strong electromagnet and a diffraction grating, which I have done, personally, in a physics lab, and derive the fine structure constant to alarmingly high resolution with even very crude instruments.

What I am telling you is this: the same equations that give marvellously accurate results in these circumstances are the same equations that have allowed us to engineer and power the computing device you are using, and they also underly and explain how space-time works. I don't know how else to put it. If our description of space-time was inaccurate, we never would have been able to perform the electrical engineering necessary to make nanometer-feature-size microprocessors, the large hadron collider or prototype nuclear fusion plants. Cathode ray tubes would not work. Just tons and tons and tons of modern technology simply would not work.

I cannot make this any more clear: this science is never going to be overturned. It is too well understood. If a paradigm changes (I urge you to read Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions), it will not do so in a way that destroys the space-time identity. It can modify, enhance, or supplement, but it cannot supplant.

Is that making any sense? Just because science is fluid doesn't mean that extraordinarily well supported hypothesis get abandoned. The history of science is that poorly supported ideas get abandoned. I can think of literally no more rigorously proven and tested ideas than E=mc^2, and that is the fundamental basis of understanding spacetime.

Edit / Update: I have re-read your comments. I have to say I have been harsh, and you have been civil, and I apologize for that. Additionally, you are clearly grappling with some very tough concepts and are doing so on your own, or lagely self taught. This is laudable, and I commend you for taking the time and being intellectually curious. What informed my tone, however, was your manner of argumentation - your insistence, basically, that you are right and that the people disagreeing with you don't know anything. If we were in a classroom setting, I would have been more kind and tolerant, because that is the place for airing your opinions and arguing about them in a collegial setting. That is often lost on reddit. That in mind, I really encourage you to read about these topics. You are obviously curious about them, and there is no reason you cannot do this reading on your own and learn all about it.

I recommend http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836, http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf and the lecture I linked above. Enjoy!

Just humor them for the time being. Here are some good books.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-Literature-Why-Difference/dp/0195383303

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Religion-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0199295514

http://www.amazon.com/Kierkegaard-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802569

Check this one out too.

>This is called opinion. It's what pollsters do. It's not scientific. It's not empirical.

Empirical: based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

When you're making a statement that the preferences of the upper class are accepted more often by policy makers than the lower classes, the only way to empirically observe this is through surveys. There is an entire literature on Public Opinion.

Reality is based on perception of the eyes, however, there's no way to, with absolute certainty, know that what is perceived by the mind is processed the same by all users. But through repetition, we show that there is consistency. Surveys do the same thing to human preferences. It is not their opinions, Gilens and Page, but observable science about the attitudes of people, and then the factual nature of what policies are passed.

If your question is, as theirs is, who's preferences are enacted into law, you need to empirically measure their preferences, and anyone with even a basic understanding of probability theory understands how a survey, when properly administered by a surveyor (not a pollster, who acts on behalf of a private interest), creates robust, replicable information about the attitudes of people, which can then be tested.

What you're saying would only make sense if their survey was their opinion of these people's opinions, which it is not. Why? Read what they wrote again.

Dude, crack a book. This shit isn't hard.

I'll get you started. We use this for undergrads: http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836

Oh, I mean by a very short introduction the series A Very Short Introduction. https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836

The other one was this https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/discovering-complexity