HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Formal Science, Fallibilism
2 Dec 2017
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There can be a general theory of scientific change. There can be no general theory of scientific change. Placebo effect, blind trial and double-blind trial. Unaccounted effects: an improvement in a medical condition can be due to unaccounted facts. Complexity: the world as it appears in observation is a product of some more fundamental inner mechanism. Post hoc explanations: any phenomenon can be given many different post hoc explanation which are equally precise. Hd method: a hypothesis that introduces unobservable entities is acceptable only if it provides confirmed novel predictions. Since these assumptions are changeable(complexity), hd method is also changeable. Nature of things-a thing has its nature, an indispensable(substantial) quality that makes a thing what it is. A method becomes employed only when it is deducible from other employed methods and accepted theories of the time. The second law: in order to become accepted into the mosaic, a theory is assessed by the method actually employed at the time.
