Limits of Science?. John E. Beerbower
philosophers of science disagree with the characterization of these shifts as revolutions. Stephen Toulmin disputed Kuhn’s formulation, describing the changes in worldview that ultimately occur as gradual developments with multiple inputs from many sources. The groundwork is laid over time by new insights and new discoveries in a variety of scientific fields. Toulmin was a contrarian in several ways, some more of which we will note later, but his disagreement on this point does not detract from the observations being offered here. Both philosophers of science agree that paradigm shifts result from the confluence of numerous developments in the scientific community and the society in which the scientists function.39
Professor Barrow argues that contemporary physics is defined or constrained by the successes of existing established theories. The established theories would constitute special limiting cases of the yet to be discovered underlying comprehensive theory. The underlying theory, if discovered, would both open new insights and explain the interconnections of the existing theories. He argues that “[r]eal advances in our understanding of the physical world always seem to involve” one or more of six types of development, ranging from “revelation” to “enumeration”. The Constants of Nature, pp.60–66. Professor Barrow disputes the term “revolution” as an accurate description of the progress of the sciences for seeming to diminish the interrelatedness and interdependency of the theories and ideas.
Philosopher of science Peter Lipton, as indicated above, defended a type of inductive reasoning. He used “inductive” to refer to any inferences other than those that are deductive, i.e., those inference that are the logically necessary conclusions from the premises. Thus, “[i]nductive inference is … a matter of weighing evidence and judging probability, not of proof.” Inference to the Best Explanation (Second Edition), p.5. “If an inference is inductive, then by definition it is underdetermined by the evidence and the rules of deduction. …By definition, even a good inductive argument is one where it is possible for there to be true premises but a false conclusion.” Id., p.7. In this formulation, the problem of induction is the question of “[h]ow … we go about making these judgments, and why [we] should … believe they are reliable,” questions of description and justification. Id., p.5. In other words, the “problem” is an invitation to try to understand how we actually make sense of the world and successfully make predictions about it. As his title suggests, Lipton described the process of science as the continual replacement of one theory by another, where the successor appears to present the “better” explanation.
A somewhat different approach was taken by philosopher of science Imre Lakatos. He described science as a “research programme.” See “Science and Pseudoscience,” Philosophical Papers, vol. 1, pp.1–7. He observed that it is misleading to focus on particular hypotheses in isolation. A scientific theory will have a “hard core” of propositions surrounded by auxiliary hypotheses that are dispensable. The research programme is “a powerful problem solving machine” that incorporates anomalies as it evolves. The most important feature to Lakatos is that the effective and successful research programmes “predict novel facts, facts which had been either undreamt of, or have indeed been contradict by previous or rival programmes.” Such programmes will be either “progressing” or “degenerating.” The degenerating programmes will eventually be abandoned and the progressing programmes will attract proponents and young talent, because they will be perceived as where the action is.
Over time, the progressing programmes will replace the degenerating programmes...“Criticism is not a Popperian quick kill, by refutation: there is no refutation without a better theory. Kuhn is wrong in thinking that scientific revolutions are sudden, irrational changes in vision.”
We should note in passing that these criticisms, while punchy, are certainly overstated. Popper contemplated a process of competition among theories, not just the rejection of any theory that failed the falsification test; Kuhn contemplated more than an irrational change in worldview. Similarly, the disputes over whether the paradigm shifts are revolutions are neither really relevant nor contrary to the notion that the scientific advances involve significant or fundamental changes in worldviews or in the accepted and acceptable (dominant) explanatory paradigms.
Complexity and prejudice
A full evaluation of Kuhn’s thesis is not material to the purposes here. But, there are a couple points of interest. One is that the process of science is more nuanced, complex and haphazard than suggested by our discussion above of explanatory models and falsifiability. Another is the asserted connection between theories in science and the concepts or structures that we use more broadly to understand and explain things within our society and culture.
Here let me introduce an example that should be accessible to everyone. To the apparent surprise of many, we now are told that the evils of fat and cholesterol in our diet have been seriously overstated for decades, based upon faulty science. The real culprits instead are sugars and carbohydrates. The challenges to the accepted wisdom arose out of studies that began appearing in 2010. See, e.g., Joanna Blythman, “Butter is bad—a myth we’ve been fed by the ‘healthy eating’ industry,” The Guardian, 23 October 2012; Matt Ridley, “Experts have been feeding us a big fat myth,” The Times, Opinion, 30 June 2014. Finally, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has made it official. Anahad O’Connor, “Nutritional Panel Calls for Less Sugar and Eases Cholesterol and Fat Restrictions,” The New York Times, February 19, 2015. In other words, the government had actively sponsored health advice and instructions that have probably contributed to the creation of a serious new health threat in the form of obesity and associated disorders like diabetes.
In response to the question of how this could have happened, some have suggested that it is the result of methodological flaws: the use of observational rather than experimental data and the confusion of correlation with causation. See, e.g., Nina Teicholz, “The Government’s Bad Diet Advice,” The New York Times, The Opinion Pages, February 20, 2015. I think that the commentators have been overlooking one of the principle reasons that the bad advice becomes accepted dogma—it makes sense, based upon our (incorrect or, at least, incomplete) understanding of how things worked in the body (eating high cholesterol food results in high cholesterol in the blood). The observational studies of groups of people over time threw up apparent associations between types of diets and health issues; our common sense of how food affected our bodies gave rise to the conclusions about causality.
The obvious obstacles to the performance of long-term clinical or experimental trials on humans prevented the most direct testing of the hypotheses. Only now are we glimpsing, as discussed below in connection with the roles played by bacteria and viruses, how much more complicated the relationship is between food and health. The mistake was the overconfidence placed by the public advocates and policy makers on the correctness of the scientific conclusions. Models are inevitable, models matter and models are likely to be wrong.
The paradigms that are used within a society are clearly relevant to the nature of the members understanding of the world around them and to the types of explanations that they will find satisfactory. But, what is the relationship between the changing paradigms and truth or reality? Is there an expected or likely relationship or is any relationship purely coincidental?
To the modern man or woman, it is probably not very persuasive to assert that there is no reality, that all perception is illusion. It also would not be very modern to claim that there is an ideal reality that exists separate from the world we inhabit, which world is merely an approximation of the perfect forms. It is probably more acceptable to assert that all perception is inherently subjective, with the result that we may never be able to see reality as it really is. We struggle with the belief that there is something that constitutes reality but are limited in our abilities to see it or comprehend it. Michael Polanyi put it as follows: “scientific discoveries are made in search of reality—a reality that is there, whether we know it or not. The search is of our own making, but reality is not. …For the scientist’s quest presupposes the existence of an external reality. … [However,] [a]ttempts to eliminate these indeterminacies of science merely replace science by a meaningless fiction.” “The Creative Imagination,” in Kransz (ed.), The Idea of Creativity,