HPS100 Lecture 05: Scientific Progress

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Do our best theories correctly describe the external world? Is there scientific progress?

00:30 Scientific Realism vs. Scientific Anti-Realism
04:57 Two Versions of Scientific Realism
___ 05:20 Structural Realism
___ 08:14 Entity Realism
___ 09:32 Contra Structural Realism
___ 13:30 Contra Entity Realism
___ 16:52 Selective Scientific Realism vs. Fallibilism
20:10 Changing the Question: Is there Scientific Progress?
21:40 Progress in Music, Art, and Sport
26:53 Progress in Science
30:32 Progress Thesis vs. No-Progress Thesis
32:40 The Problem of Progress in the TSC
37:00 No-Miracles Argument
41:23 Pessimistic Induction Argument
___ 53:26 The Pessimistic Induction Argument Debunked
56:00 Summary: Progress Thesis vs. No-Progress Thesis

Watch in HD 1080 for the best quality.

[shanawargill]

Calling football football and not calling eggball football, made you my favorite prof.

[pauloolivares]

Getting further and further away from error, is it getting closer to the truth?

[thefinnishbolshevik]

As a wise man once said: "If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian ungraspable 'thing-in-itself.' The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained such 'things-in-themselves' until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the 'thing-in-itself' became a thing for us, as, for instance, alizarin, the coloring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow ill the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar. For 300 years the Copernican solar system was a hypothesis with a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand chances to one in its favor, but still always a hypothesis. But when Leverrier, by means of the data provided by this system, not only deduced the necessity of the existence of an unknown planet, but also calculated the position in the heavens which this planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galle really found this planet, the Copernican system was proved." (F. Engels, "Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy)

[thefinnishbolshevik]

We can't just jump to a completely correct ontology or theory, the better theories build themselves on top of past mistakes and successes. Descartes needed Aristotle and Newtonians needed Cartesians. Aristotle needed Plato too, and yet we are quick to ridicule the ideas of Plato because they are so distant to us without understanding their progressive historical role at the time!

[Kimani_White]

Scientific theories are just descriptive representations that serve to conceptually model some aspect(s) of reality -- just like maps. As we all know, maps aren't identical to the terrain they're used to represent, nor do they have to be. So long as their accuracy is sufficient to the task of navigation, they're true enough.

[Umarology]

I've came across a book written by you but I am curious if anything prerequisite to this course that I should go through before switching to this course again?

[daleg.]

But there really is a graveyard of mistaken ontologies, isn't there -- geocentrism, Lamarkism, phlogiston theory, theory of the four bodily humors, etc? Given science's history of error, how can we say with confidence that the current theories are any closer to reality?

[HarlowBAshur]

If science is unique among human endeavors wherein progress can be shown, then obviously we must conclude that the philosophy of science must be part of science itself, unless it is just for our amusement.

The Greeks had the technology to record progress in discus throwing at their games, but they did not.

[Gyrant]

Not watching this video because the intro made me want to go watch Queen videos.