History and Philosophy of Science.

[Monkey]

Hi people,

I'm usually lurking over at E/C but was wondering if anyone had any good resources on the history and philosophy of science. Particularly modern philosophy of science.

I did a unit at university on some basic stuff like Popper and paradigms, induction and deduction etc and wrote a paper about Controversies in science on Evolution and Creation and another paper on Lamarckism, both of which I found particularly interesting.

Comments on why theism is/isn't an acceptle hypothesis in modern science would be appreciated/interesting aswell.

Thanks very much,

Monkey.

[Vorkosigan]

Monkey:

Just run a search on History of science grad seminars and you will turn up hundreds of useful references on the Net. Alternatively, Shapin's The Scientific Revolution -- an excellent work in and of itself -- contains a wonderful appendix with a fabulous review of the work in various fields, noting key works and their importance. If your university offers access to NetLibrary you should be able to download the whole appendix easily.

Vorkosigan

[Roland98]

Since you're looking specifically for info on science philosophy, I think the Philosophy forum may be a better fit for your request.

-Roland98
S&S moderator

[theophilus]

Originally posted by Monkey
Hi people,

I'm usually lurking over at E/C but was wondering if anyone had any good resources on the history and philosophy of science. Particularly modern philosophy of science.

I did a unit at university on some basic stuff like Popper and paradigms, induction and deduction etc and wrote a paper about Controversies in science on Evolution and Creation and another paper on Lamarckism, both of which I found particularly interesting.

Comments on why theism is/isn't an acceptle hypothesis in modern science would be appreciated/interesting aswell.

Thanks very much,

Monkey.

Here is an excellent introduction written by Hugo Holbling on this thread Introduction to Philosophy of Science (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68559)

Some of this may already be familiar to you.

p.s. Hugo seems to have taken the actual article with him when he left this forum; what remains is the discussion that followed. You may still find it useful.

EUREKA, I have found it: Philosophy of Science (http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=18)

[Minnesota]

Here is an excellent introduction that looks at both the concepts of science and the current issues surrounding them. 400 pages.
The author is Arthur N. Strahler.

Click on the book

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0879757248.01._PE_PI_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879757248/qid=1072129331/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/104-8511949-7369561?v=glance&s=books)

[boneyard bill]

Monkey writes:

Comments on why theism is/isn't an acceptle hypothesis in modern science would be appreciated/interesting aswell.

Modern science rests on two epistemological foundations, reason and empiricism. Christian theism rests on faith and revelation. Christian theism doesn't deny reason and empiricism completely. It just denies that they can provide a complete explanation of the nature of the human condition. As Acquinas put it, reason can lead us to a knowledge of God's existence, but it cannot tell us much about God's nature and purposes for that we need revelation which comes from scripture and the institution of the Church. (Protestants, however, would deny the role of the institutional church).

More generally, however, I would suggest that religious views of all sorts are holistic in nature. (The whole is the fundamental reality and the parts take on their character from their relationship to the whole). Science, on the other hand, is almost entirely reductionistic. (The whole is the sum of its parts).

It's not that the term "holistic science" is a contradiction in terms, it's just that no one has any real grasp on what a holistic methodology would look like. The only holistic science I'm aware of is Gestalt psychology. How you connect that with physics, however, is difficult to see. Kohler tried to do that but I don't think he got very far.

David Bohm produced a holistic theory of quantum mechanics that sounded pretty theistic to me although he was generally classed as a mystic. See his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order. But he was accused of doing metaphysics. His theory works just as well as the other theories but it is not falsifiable. It makes no predictions that the other theories don't.

That is the problem. It is hard to see how you can do a holistic science without engaging in a certain amount of metaphysics, and then you get into the falsifiability problem. But see Thomas Kuhn's, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions regarding the falsifiability problem.

In essence, however, I would claim that the modern scientific world-view is the triumph of methodolgy over reason. We accept nothing that cannot be proven by our methodology. But what proves our methodology? Our methodology presupposes a reductionistic world so it is hardly surprising that that is the world-view we get out of it.

[Bede]

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Modern science rests on two epistemological foundations, reason and empiricism.

No it doesn't. It rests on a few axioms of which two are that reason can comprehend the universe and that induction holds. Neither of these can be demonstrated by science.

Christian theism rests on faith and revelation. Christian theism doesn't deny reason and empiricism completely.

Christianity could equaly be said to rest on the empirical observations of the apostles and their reasoning regarding them. You are just erecting strawmen anyway as Christians doing science rest their work on the same thing everyone else does.

It just denies that they can provide a complete explanation of the nature of the human condition.

Science doesn't say that either. Scientism does but that is widely realised to be utter BS.

As Acquinas put it, reason can lead us to a knowledge of God's existence, but it cannot tell us much about God's nature and purposes for that we need revelation which comes from scripture and the institution of the Church. (Protestants, however, would deny the role of the institutional church).

True enough although Aquinas does not refine orthodoxy.

In essence, however, I would claim that the modern scientific world-view is the triumph of methodolgy over reason. We accept nothing that cannot be proven by our methodology. But what proves our methodology? Our methodology presupposes a reductionistic world so it is hardly surprising that that is the world-view we get out of it.

Also not wrong but contradicts your earlier point.

Theism is outside science because scientists say it ought to be. Until the 1800s no one considered excluding God to be rational and most scientists were explicit that God was required in their theories. Read, for instance, the general scholium to Newton's Principia.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason (http://www.bede.org.uk)

[boneyard bill]

Bede writes:

No it doesn't. It rests on a few axioms of which two are that reason can comprehend the universe and that induction holds. Neither of these can be demonstrated by science.

I don't see the disagreement here. Your statement doesn't refute my claim; it restates it with a little more precision.

Christianity could equaly be said to rest on the empirical observations of the apostles and their reasoning regarding them. You are just erecting strawmen anyway as Christians doing science rest their work on the same thing everyone else does.

The empirical observations of the apostles would mean very little without the claim that they constitute a revelation from god. And I never claimed that Christian's did science any differently than anyone else. But certainly Christians hold different standards of what is reliable evidence of truth beyond what science can produce. Why the antagonistic tone?

Science doesn't say that either. Scientism does but that is widely realised to be utter BS.

But science doesn't accept any other truth claims either. So science is forever incomplete and always contingent.

The is, however, a great deal of scientism on these boards.

Also not wrong but contradicts your earlier point.

I don't see the contradicton. I think you have misunderstood my earlier point. Though I don't know what point you are referring to.

Theism is outside science because scientists say it ought to be. Until the 1800s no one considered excluding God to be rational and most scientists were explicit that God was required in their theories. Read, for instance, the general scholium to Newton's Principia

Yes, but that would now be regarded as metaphysics. Again, you're re-stating my point, not refuting it. But now you've re-stated it with less precision.

[Will I Am]

(What the venerable Bede said...)

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by Monkey
Hi people,

I'm usually lurking over at E/C but was wondering if anyone had any good resources on the history and philosophy of science. Particularly modern philosophy of science.

I did a unit at university on some basic stuff like Popper and paradigms, induction and deduction etc and wrote a paper about Controversies in science on Evolution and Creation and another paper on Lamarckism, both of which I found particularly interesting.

Comments on why theism is/isn't an acceptle hypothesis in modern science would be appreciated/interesting aswell.

Thanks very much,

Monkey.
You mentioned Popper and paradigms. Have you read Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolution? If you've not done so, I would recommend studying the history of the analytic movement in philosophy, starting with Russel's theory of descriptions.

If you've not gotten in these, I can recommend some links and books.

[DiogenesofSinoppe]

Anyone wanting to know how philosophy and science interact, I'd suggest Alfred North Whitehead's Science and the Modern World as a good beginning.

I don't know if this would apply, but my friend Dr. William F. Lawhead wrote an essay called The Steamy Affair between the Sciences and the Humanities. I'll search around and see if I can find a link.

[exnihilo]

Ditto on Kuhn's work. You may also want to check out Paul Feyerabend's Against Method as well as Imre Lakatos' Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge and Gunther Stent's The Coming of the Golden Age.

[ex-xian]

Originally posted by DiogenesofSinoppe
I don't know if this would apply, but my friend Dr. William F. Lawhead wrote an essay called The Steamy Affair between the Sciences and the Humanities. I'll search around and see if I can find a link.
I'd appreciate a link to this, if you can find it.

[DiogenesofSinoppe]

Sorry, I forgot to look.

Looking now!:D

[DiogenesofSinoppe]

Simple searches could not produce anything.

You could email him and request a copy.

wlawhead@olemiss.edu