HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Current Science, Pseudoscience, Homeopathy
28 Jan 2016
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Scientific: general relativity, history, genetics, neuropathy, newtonian physics, superstring, divination. Three categories: accepted scientific theories, scientific theories, unscientific theories. An empirical theory is scientific if it is based on experience. Ex; based on experience: appearance of comet foreshadows disaster problem is that it is very vague. An empirical theory is scientific if it explains all the known facts of its domain. Ex; newton"s theory explained some of the known facts but it had some anomalies (contradiction) . If we employ this then this theory would be unscientific. **an empirical theory is scientific if it explains by and large, the known facts of its domain- necessary but not sufficient and it is testable (falsiable; opposite is conceivable) at least in principle. Mechanics: concerned with artificial mechanisms, wasn"t supposed to unearth nature of a thing to uncover nature of a thing considered a craft, not a science; it was used, but not accepted. Alchemy: was attempting to grasp the nature of things.
