HPS100H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cold Fusion, Inductive Reasoning, Boiling Point
20 Nov 2012
School
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Empirical facts: supported by direct, straightforward, observational evidence. You can see, feel, hear, taste and smell it (if you wanted). Now you have another pencil, same situation. This belief cannot be the same as believing the pencil on the desk. After all, you cannot see, touch, or observe it in the drawer. This is because most of us cannot imagine that objects go out of existence when they are no longer observed. Stable objects remain in existence without being observed. The pencil on the dust is direct observational evidence while the other stems from our views on the world we live in. A scientific theory has relevant facts but theories from the history of science are based on philosophical/conceptual convictions about the sort of world people involved inhabited. Example: from ancient greece to the early 1600s, people believed plants moved w perfectly circular and uniform motion at the same speed.
