Evolution of Scientific Discovery: From Methods to Practice

Introduction

We will study about scientific discovery, Does it require methods and logic of methods. We will learn about scientific discovery as enquiry and learn about Bacon views. We will talk about Russel , Kuhn and poppler views and study on critical responses on logics.

Historical

Aristotle had done work on scientific method have been assembled into a body of texts known as the Organon, which is composed of six different writing. Aristotle used deductive method from given primeses ex.

A is true of all B

B is true of all C

A is true of all C

He concludes a third condition from given two condition.

This method is known as deduction.

Scientific inquiry as discovery-Scientific discovery was the main problem at mid 17th century. Bacon , Newton and Descartes expounded accounts of scientific for arriving at new knowledge. These accounts are not method of discovery. They understood enquiry ideas as method of discovery and made a systematic procedure. These methods are also methods of justification.

Get quality help now

Sweet V

Verified writer

Proficient in: Science

4.9 (984)

“ Ok, let me say I’m extremely satisfy with the result while it was a last minute thing. I really enjoy the effort put in. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Mistakes were made by them that waxed and waned for various scientific and sociocultural reasons up through the end of the Enlightenment.

Method of Hypothetis

Creativity and doubt on the scientific claims led to the method of discovery changed into the method of hypothesis. The Newtonian method ruled out much hypothetical work that seemed fruitful. According to the hypothetico-deductive (H-IJ) method is that They need not derive from vast tables of data. But may be the products of momentary inspiration. A test consists in deducing (or otherwise deriving) an observable consequence (a prediction) from the claim being tested and then checking to see if the prediction is true.

If so, the hypoth¬esis is confirmed. Logics of discovery-A method is called logical when it satisfies condition we have established these condition our purpose needs. We will talk about critical responses on logic of discovery.

Popper and falsificationism

Falsification is deductive it involves scientists deducing observational consequences from the hypothesis under test. For Popper, however, the important point was not whatever confirmation successful prediction offered to the hypotheses but rather the logical asymmetry between such confirmations, which require an inductive inference, versus falsification, which can be based on a deductive inference.

Popper focused that, regardless of the amount of confirming evidence, we can never be certain that a hypothesis is true without committing the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Instead, Popper introduced the notion of corroboration as a measure for how well a theory or hypothesis has survived previous testing—but without implying that this is also a measure for the probability that it is true. He wanted to draw a line of demarcation between science and pseudo-science. . Popper saw this as an importantly different distinction than demarcating science from metaphysics. The latter demarcation was the primary concern of many logical empiricists.

Meta-methodology and the end of method

The kind of image Kuhn wanted to transform was the a-historical, rational reconstruction sought by many of the Logical Positivists, though Carnap and other positivists were actually quite sympathetic to Kuhn’s views. Kuhn shares with other of his contemporaries, such as Feyerabend and Lakatos, a commitment to a more empirical approach to philosophy of science. Namely, the history of science provides important data, and necessary checks, for philosophy of science, including any theory of scientific method. According to Kuhn, that scientific development occurs in alternating phases. During normal science, the members of the scientific community adhere to the paradigm in place. Their commitment to the paradigm means a commitment to the puzzles to be solved and the acceptable ways of solving them. Confidence in the paradigm remains so long as steady progress is made in solving the shared puzzles. Method in this normal phase operates within a disciplinary matrix (Kuhn’s later concept of a paradigm) which includes standards for problem solving, as well as defines the range of problems the method should be applied to. An important part of a disciplinary matrix is the set of values which provide the norms and aims for scientific method. The main values that Kuhn identifies are prediction, problem solving, simplicity, consistency, and plausibility.

Russell’s views on philosophical science

Russell claimed that he was more satisfied of his method of doing philosophy than of his philosophical conclusions. Science was one of the principal components of analysis. Russell was a believer in the scientific method that science reaches only tentative answers, that scientific progress is piecemeal, and attempts to find organic unities were largely futile. He believed the same was true of philosophy. Russell held that the ultimate objective of both science and philosophy was to understand reality, not simply to make predictions. Russell held that of the physical world we know only its abstract structure except for the intrinsic character of our own brain with which we have direct acquaintance. He said that he had always assumed copunctuality between percepts and non-percepts, and percepts were also part of the physical world, a part of which we knew its intrinsic character directly, knowledge which goes beyond structure. His views on science have become integrated into the contemporary debate in the philosophy of science as a form of Structural Realism.

Method in practice

Creative and extraploratory practices

Examining the reasoning practices of historical and contemporary scientists, Nersessian (2008) has argued that new scientific concepts are constructed as solutions to specific problems by systematic reasoning, and that of analogy, visual representation and thought-experimentation are among the important reasoning practices employed. These ubiquitous forms of reasoning are reliable—but also fallible—methods of conceptual development and change. On her account, model-based reasoning consists of cycles of construction, simulation, evaluation and adaption of models that serve as interim interpretations of the target problem to be solved.

Computer methods and the ‘third way’ of doing science

Computers allow for more elaborate experimentation (higher speed, better filtering, more variables, sophisticated coordination and control), but also, through modelling and simulations, might constitute a form of experimentation themselves. Because computers can be used to automate measurements, quantifications, calculations, and statistical analyses where, for practical reasons, these operations cannot be otherwise carried out, many of the steps involved in reaching a conclusion on the basis of an experiment are now made inside a “black box”, without the direct involvement or awareness of a human.

Conclusion

The question of the source of the success of science has been at the core of philosophy since the beginning of modern science. If viewed as a matter of epistemology more generally, scientific method is a part of the entire history of philosophy. Over that time, science and whatever methods its practioners may employ have changed dramatically. Today, many philosophers have taken up the banners of pluralism or of practice to focus on what are, in effect, fine-grained and contextually limited examinations of scientific method. One such perspective has been offered recently by Hoyningen-Huene (2008, 2013), who argues from the history of philosophy of science that after three lengthy phases of characterizing science by its method, we are now in a phase where the belief in the existence of a positive scientific method has eroded and what has been left to characterize science is only its fallibility.