{"title":"How Do Explanations Lead to Scientific Knowledge?*","authors":"K. McCain","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121278172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-11DOI: 10.4324/9780203703809-15
Matthew J. Brown
A traditional view in philosophy of science has it that the objectivity of science requires that science be value-free, governed only by epistemic standards. But the ideal of science as value-free has been shown to be untenable, not only because it is unrealistic to expect scientists to remain entirely impartial and unbiased, but because the ideal is epistemically and ethically undesirable. Arguments for the valueladenness of science thus problematize scientific objectivity. Some philosophers of science, persuaded that science cannot and should not be value-free, have attempted to articulate accounts of objectivity compatible with this result. While some of these attempts get at important norms for science, the concept of “objectivity” is at best an unhelpful way to express them. What is needed is to replace the emphasis on objectivity with an account of scientific integrity that outlines the epistemic and ethical responsibilities of scientists. Objectivity and the Value-Free Ideal Particle physicists must decide how much evidence to collect before announcing the discovery of a new particle like the Higgs Boson, balancing reasonable caution about premature or erroneous discovery claims against the value of a successful discovery claim (Staley 2017). Regulatory scientists assessing the potential toxicity of a chemical must determine thresholds of evidence
{"title":"Is Science Really Value Free and Objective?","authors":"Matthew J. Brown","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-15","url":null,"abstract":"A traditional view in philosophy of science has it that the objectivity of science requires that science be value-free, governed only by epistemic standards. But the ideal of science as value-free has been shown to be untenable, not only because it is unrealistic to expect scientists to remain entirely impartial and unbiased, but because the ideal is epistemically and ethically undesirable. Arguments for the valueladenness of science thus problematize scientific objectivity. Some philosophers of science, persuaded that science cannot and should not be value-free, have attempted to articulate accounts of objectivity compatible with this result. While some of these attempts get at important norms for science, the concept of “objectivity” is at best an unhelpful way to express them. What is needed is to replace the emphasis on objectivity with an account of scientific integrity that outlines the epistemic and ethical responsibilities of scientists. Objectivity and the Value-Free Ideal Particle physicists must decide how much evidence to collect before announcing the discovery of a new particle like the Higgs Boson, balancing reasonable caution about premature or erroneous discovery claims against the value of a successful discovery claim (Staley 2017). Regulatory scientists assessing the potential toxicity of a chemical must determine thresholds of evidence","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"72 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114560940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Contemporary scientific research, especially in most of the STEM disciplines and the social sciences, is massively collaborative. This chapter focuses on a characterization of knowledge that is widely endorsed in epistemology. According to it, knowledge is warranted true belief, where warrant is a general epistemically good-making property that makes the difference between a belief’s being merely true and its constituting knowledge. It describes knowledge as warranted true belief. Because scientific knowledge is high-grade knowledge, scientific warrant must consist of explicit evidence and reasons. Traditionally, knowledge has been conceived as involving individual mental states and this is why many philosophers reject the idea that there can be genuinely collective knowledge. The philosopher of science Philip Kitcher refers to ‘the traditional conception of knowledge as something that is located in an individual subject’. Knowledge plays various functional roles in intellectual and practical lives.
{"title":"How Many Scientists Does It Take to Have Knowledge?","authors":"J. Ridder","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-1","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary scientific research, especially in most of the STEM disciplines and the social sciences, is massively collaborative. This chapter focuses on a characterization of knowledge that is widely endorsed in epistemology. According to it, knowledge is warranted true belief, where warrant is a general epistemically good-making property that makes the difference between a belief’s being merely true and its constituting knowledge. It describes knowledge as warranted true belief. Because scientific knowledge is high-grade knowledge, scientific warrant must consist of explicit evidence and reasons. Traditionally, knowledge has been conceived as involving individual mental states and this is why many philosophers reject the idea that there can be genuinely collective knowledge. The philosopher of science Philip Kitcher refers to ‘the traditional conception of knowledge as something that is located in an individual subject’. Knowledge plays various functional roles in intellectual and practical lives.","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130503826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-11DOI: 10.4324/9780203703809-10
H. Andersen
{"title":"Can Scientific Knowledge Be Measured by Numbers?","authors":"H. Andersen","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"24 34","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120899894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Can We Tell Science from Pseudoscience?","authors":"S. Law","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114774477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Is Scientific Understanding and How Can It Be Achieved?","authors":"H. D. Regt, C. Baumberger","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"96 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134119783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-11DOI: 10.4324/9780203703809-16
Martin V. Curd, D. Tulodziecki
{"title":"Should We Trust What Our Scientific Theories Say?","authors":"Martin V. Curd, D. Tulodziecki","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-16","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134569459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-11DOI: 10.4324/9780203703809-11
Andrew Shtulman, Andrew G. Young
Humans’ understanding of science is at once impressive and appalling. Humans, as a species, have uncovered the hidden causes of most natural phenomena, from rainbows to influenza to earthquakes. Unobservable causal agents, like germs and genes, have been discovered and studied and are now familiar to everyone, scientists and nonscientists alike. Even children are familiar with germs and genes, despite our ignorance of these entities for the majority of human history. On the other hand, individual humans often lack an understanding of core scientific ideas – ideas that most educated adults have encountered in books, museums, and classes but still fail to understand. National polls in the United States and other countries have revealed that millions of people believe that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, that atoms are smaller than electrons, and that the earth’s continents are fixed in place. Likewise, millions are skeptical that genetically modified foods are safe to eat, that climate change is caused by humans, and that humans evolved from nonhuman ancestors (National Science Board, 2018; Pew Research Center, 2015). Exposure to scientific ideas does not guarantee their comprehension or acceptance. While there are several reasons why scientific ideas remain elusive, one primary reason is that they conflict with the explanations we devise on our own about how the world works (Carey, 2009; Shtulman, 2017; Vosniadou, 1994). These explanations, termed “folk theories” or “intuitive theories,” are typically constructed in childhood prior to any formal instruction in the relevant domain. They are derived from a combination of inputs – innate concepts, empirical observations, culturally transmitted beliefs – and they serve the same function as scientific theories, namely, furnishing us with systematic and coherent inferences about natural phenomena (though see DiSessa, 2008, for an alternative view of how conceptual knowledge is structured).
{"title":"Why Do Logically Incompatible Beliefs Seem Psychologically Compatible?","authors":"Andrew Shtulman, Andrew G. Young","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-11","url":null,"abstract":"Humans’ understanding of science is at once impressive and appalling. Humans, as a species, have uncovered the hidden causes of most natural phenomena, from rainbows to influenza to earthquakes. Unobservable causal agents, like germs and genes, have been discovered and studied and are now familiar to everyone, scientists and nonscientists alike. Even children are familiar with germs and genes, despite our ignorance of these entities for the majority of human history. On the other hand, individual humans often lack an understanding of core scientific ideas – ideas that most educated adults have encountered in books, museums, and classes but still fail to understand. National polls in the United States and other countries have revealed that millions of people believe that dinosaurs coexisted with humans, that atoms are smaller than electrons, and that the earth’s continents are fixed in place. Likewise, millions are skeptical that genetically modified foods are safe to eat, that climate change is caused by humans, and that humans evolved from nonhuman ancestors (National Science Board, 2018; Pew Research Center, 2015). Exposure to scientific ideas does not guarantee their comprehension or acceptance. While there are several reasons why scientific ideas remain elusive, one primary reason is that they conflict with the explanations we devise on our own about how the world works (Carey, 2009; Shtulman, 2017; Vosniadou, 1994). These explanations, termed “folk theories” or “intuitive theories,” are typically constructed in childhood prior to any formal instruction in the relevant domain. They are derived from a combination of inputs – innate concepts, empirical observations, culturally transmitted beliefs – and they serve the same function as scientific theories, namely, furnishing us with systematic and coherent inferences about natural phenomena (though see DiSessa, 2008, for an alternative view of how conceptual knowledge is structured).","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129456164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-06-11DOI: 10.4324/9780203703809-17
S. Gottlieb, T. Lombrozo
{"title":"What Are the Limits of Scientific Explanation?","authors":"S. Gottlieb, T. Lombrozo","doi":"10.4324/9780203703809-17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203703809-17","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":183754,"journal":{"name":"What Is Scientific Knowledge?","volume":"44 6","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114039584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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