DOCSLIB.ORG

Post-Empirical’ Science and Determining Future Directions

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Post-Empirical’ Science and Determining Future Directions Controversy in High Energy Physics: ‘Post-empirical’ science and determining future directions Sophie Ritson 11.6.2018 The String Wars “science” (Duff, 2013, p. 185) “speculative metaphysics” (Richter, 2006, pp. 8-9) “pseudoscience” (Krauss, 2005) “beautiful” (Schwarz, 1996, p. 698) “ugly” (Woit, 2006d, p. 265) “a final theory” (Weinberg, 1993, p. 212) “catastrophic failure” (Smolin, 2006b, p. 170). the debates have “raised deep questions about the very nature of physics as a discipline” (Galison, 1995b, p. 403). The String Wars • 1986 ‘Desperately Seeking Superstrings’ published in Physics Today Ginsparg and Glashow • 1999 The Elegant Universe written by Brian Greene • 2003/4 The Anthropic landscape • 2004 ‘Not Even Wrong’ the blog is launched by String Theory Critic Peter Woit • November 8 2005 Laurence Krauss writes an essay in the New York Times titled: Science and Religion Share Fascination in Things Unseen’ • 2006 Two books critical of string theory are published by Lee Smolin and Peter Woit • 2012 Dawid publishes String Theory and the Scientific Method • 2014 Editorial in Nature titled ‘Scientific Method: Defend the integrity of physics’by Ellis and Silk • 2014 ‘Why Trust a Theory Conference’ in Munich A post empirical era? • From the philosophical literature • on the basis of a lack of empiricism in string theory • the string theory debates are held up as evidence of emergent conceptualisation of science This has led several historians and philosophers of science to ask if the widespread belief in string theory constitutes a new post empirical era for science The Demarcation Problem (according to Popper) “…since the autumn 1919 when I first begin to grapple with the problem, “When should a theory be ranked as scientific?" or "Is there a criterion for the scientific character or status of a theory?” The problem which troubled me at the time was neither, "When is a theory true?" nor "When is a theory acceptable?" my problem was different. I wished to distinguish between science and pseudo-science; knowing very well that science often errs, and that pseudoscience may happen to stumble on the truth” (Popper, 1962) “the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability” 60 years of philosophy of science Falsificationism • Initial appeal: showed the rigour of scientists • Problems: failed logically, descriptively, normatively Lakatos: progressive research programmes predict novel facts which are confirmed by experiment • Initial appeal: matched well with historical episodes of widely considered successful science • Problems: only helpful retrospectively Kuhn: science is the current paradigm • Initial appeal: matched well with historical episodes of widely considered successful science (Copernican ‘revolution’) • Problems: many, but a big one was is this paradigm thing anyway? Laudan: embarked on a ambitious project to study the history of science to determine demarcation criteria The Demarcation Problem is a Pseudo- problem (according to Laudan) “it seems pretty clear that philosophy has largely failed to deliver the relevant goods. Whatever the specific strengths and deficiencies of the numerous well-known efforts at demarcation, it is probably fair to say that there is no demarcation line between science and non-science, or between science and pseudoscience, which would win assent from a majority of philosophers or anyone else. Nor is there one which should win acceptance from philosophers or anyone else” Laudan (1983) ‘The demise of the demarcation problem’ in Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis p. 111-112 “we aught to drop terms like ‘pseudo-science’ and ‘unscientific’ from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us” Laudan (1983, p. 125) • Old view: there is one science • Based on consensus of methods, theories, approaches, etc. • “The Scientific Method” • Basic set of theories • All scientists speak the same language • New approach: enormous diversity in science • Beliefs, approaches, experiments, etc. • Consensus has to be achieved Boundary work • Demarcation occurs in practical settings all the time • Gieyrn argues that demarcation occurs as part of efforts by scientists to distinguish their work “‘science’ is no single thing: it’s boundaries are drawn and redrawn in flexible, historically changing and sometimes ambiguous ways” (Gieryn, 1983, 781) • Boundary work is attributing selected characteristics to the institution of science More on Boundary Work Gieryn (1999) Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the line • Defining epistemic authority as “the legitimate power to define, describe, and explain bounded domains of reality” • the label of science carries an “epistemic seal of approval” • the “contours of science are shaped by the local contingencies of the moment: the adversaries then and there, the stakes, the geographically challenged audiences ” • Scientists are “neither omniscient nor deceitful” “In this contest, each side draws a different map to create “science” as a distinctive ontological preserve over which they have legitimate claim to authoritative representation.” “mathematics is to science what masturbation is to sex” (Murray Gell-Mann) Is string theory really science? “unless it allows an approximation scheme for “Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental yielding useful and testable physical theories to the observed Universe, some information, might be the sort of thing that researchers called for a change in how Wolfgang Pauli would have said is “not even theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently wrong”” (Ginsparg & Glashow, 1986, p. 39) elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested “more appropriate to departments of experimentally, breaking with centuries of mathematics or even to schools of divinity than philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical. We disagree. As the to physics departments” (Glashow, 1995). philosopher of science Karl Popper argued: a “no realistic possibility for a definitive theory must be falsifiable to be scientific. Chief confirmation or falsification of a unique among the 'elegance will suffice' advocates are prediction from it by a currently doable some string theorists … experiment” (Smolin, 2006) post-empirical science is an oxymoron ”(Ellis & “much of what currently passes as the most Silk, 2014) advanced theory looks to be more theological speculation” (Richter, 2006) String theory is a testable in principle. Just not yet in practice “The history of science is filled with “supersymmetry (which historically was ideas that when first presented seemed discovered at least in part because of its completely untestable … ideas that we role in string theory) is a genuine now accept fully but that, at their prediction of string theory” (Witten, inception, seemed more like musings of 1998) science fiction than aspects of science “String theory is full of qualitative fact” (Greene, 1999) predictions, such as the production of “gravitational waves (1916), the black holes in the LHC [Large Hadron cosmological constant (1917) … [and] Collider] or cosmic strings in the sky, the Higgs boson (1964)” serve as and this level of prediction is perfectly instructive examples of theoretical acceptable in almost every other field of predictions that were untestable when science .. Only in experimental particle they were first announced (Duff, 2013) physics is it the case that a theory can be thrown out if the 10th decimal place of a prediction doesn’t agree with experiment” (Gross, 2007) Retro-dictions and counterfactual histories “these theories have (or this one theory has) the remarkable property of predicting gravity” (Witten, 1996) “had history followed a different course – and had physicists come upon string theory some hundred years earlier – we can imagine that these symmetry principles would have been discovered by studying its properties” (Greene, 1999) String theory makes progress by solving problems “String and M-theory continue to make remarkable theoretical progress, for example by providing the first microscopic derivation of the black hole entropy formula first proposed by Hawking in the mid 1970s. Solving long outstanding theoretical problems such a this indicates that we are on the right track.” (Duff, 2013) Self-immunisation strategies and ad hoc manoeuvres “while supersymmetry is not precisely unfalsifiable, it is difficult to falsify, as many negative results can be-and have been- dealt with by changing the parameters of the theory” (Smolin, 2007) “[t]he world doesn’t have eleven dimensions, so it rolls up seven. Why not six, why not four? It’s a hell of a theory isn’t it? One can’t even check the number of dimensions.” (Feynman, 1988) Against Falsificationism “Good scientific methodology is not an abstract set of rules dictated by philosophers. It is conditioned by, and determined by, the science itself and the scientists who create the science. What may have constituted scientific proof for a particle physicist of the 1960’s – namely the detection of an isolated particle – is inappropriate for a modern quark physicist who can never hope to remove and isolate a quark. Let’s not pull the cart before the horse. Science is the horse which pulls philosophy … Falsification in my opinion is a red herring, but confirmation is another story. By confirmation I mean direct positive evidence for a hypothesis rather than the absence of negative evidence” (Susskind, 2005) Against Falsificationism “String theory and other
Load more

Recommended publications
  • To What Extent Can Philosophy Contribute to the Public Understanding of Science?
    ‘Sloppy Thinking’: To What Extent Can Philosophy Contribute to the Public Understanding of Science? Ben Trubody A thesis submitted to the University of Gloucestershire in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Technology Cheltenham September 2013 Abstract This thesis will address two questions: Does philosophy contribute to the ‘public understanding of science’ (PUoS), and if so, how? The popular public image of science is one of methodology. Science is a means for making true statements about the world, where we compare hypothesis with observation against the evidence. This then allows for a body of knowledge that guides further advancements and progress. Philosophy, however, seems to be antithetical to this. A popular notion is that philosophy is either what science was, or it deals with objects and ideas so intangible, that they have no real effect in the world. Either it is an outmoded way of doing science, or it is the preserve of armchair academics. In both cases the average person would be forgiven for thinking it had no relevance to them, and especially their ability to understand science. This thesis will look to challenge this relationship. Using hermeneutics, discourse-textual analysis and deconstruction, I present two interpretations of science and philosophy. These two interpretations I will call the ‘methodological’ and ‘historical’ approach. The ‘methodological’ approach is to understand science as a collection of principles or rules that, if followed, will produce true statements about the world. An example of such a principle that intersected both philosophy and science is ‘falsification’ as understood through the ‘problem of demarcation’ (PoD).
    [Show full text]
  • New Styles of Reasoning in Contemporary Philosophy and Science
    E-LOGOS – Electronic Journal for Philosophy 2020, Vol. 27(2) 34–45 ISSN 1211-0442 (DOI 10.18267/j.e-logos.477), Peer-reviewed article Journal homepage: e-logos.vse.cz New Styles of Reasoning in Contemporary Philosophy and Science Jitka Paitlová1 Abstract: The paper discusses the unexpected trends in the most modern forms of philosophy and science. The traditional differences in the roles of philosophy and science can be traced back to Kant: natural sciences refer to possible experience; philosophy as metaphysics does not affect experience at all. Today, there are very different trends. Some physical theories (such as string theory) have a highly theoretical character and cannot be proved by empirical experiments. A new approach has been developed in philosophy too: experimental philosophy, which makes use of empirical data to inform research on philosophical questions. Are these approaches just contradictions in terms or rather new styles of reasoning? The goal is not a deep analysis of x-phi or string theory but a reflection on the context between tradition and new trends in philosophy and science which are still rather marginal but may play an important role in the future. Keywords: experimental philosophy, metaphysics, science, string theory, objectivity, intuition. 1 University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Sedláčkova 19, Plzeň, Czech Republic, email: [email protected]. Funded by GAČR 18-08239S "Objectivity: An Experimental Approach to the Traditional Philosophical Question". Volume 27 | Number 02 | 2020 E-LOGOS – ELECTRONIC JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY 34 1 Introduction A few years ago, a new approach was formed in philosophy that uses a philosophical method not merely intellectually or speculatively, but actually in the sense of empirical experiments (Knobe, 2004; Sosa, 2007; Knobe & Nichols, 2008).2 This new approach is metaphorically described as a revolutionary movement that burns the armchairs of traditional philosophers who were engaged in pure thought without any connection to the outside (empirical) world.
    [Show full text]
  • 8.1 Tacit Knowledge in Theoretical Physics
    e Sociology of eoretical Physics by u gnacio eyes alindo Supervised by Prof. Harold Maurice Collins & Dr. Robert John Evans is thesis is submitted to the Cardiff University School of Social Sciences for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy (Social Sciences) eptember 2011 Declaration is work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not con- currently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signature Date Statement 1 is thesis is being submitted in partial fullment of the requirements for the degree of PhD. Signature Date Statement 2 is thesis is the result of my own independent work and investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. Signature Date Statement 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be immediately made available to outside organisations. Signature Date iii hen heard e learn’d tronomer; hen e proofs, e gures, were ranged in columns before me; hen w shown e charts and e diagrams, to add, divide, and meure em; hen , sitting, heard e tronomer, where he leured wi much applae in e leure-room, ow soon, unaccounble, became tired and sick; i ring and gliding out, wander’d off by myself, n e mystical mot night-air, and om time to time, ook’d up in perfe silence e stars. —Walt Whitman v Acknowledgements is thesis would not have been possible, as always, without the endless support of my father and elf-mother, and my dearest sister Marranela.
    [Show full text]
  • NOT EVEN WRONG Tells a Fascinating and Complex Story About Human
    NOT EVEN WRONG tells a fascinating and complex story about human beings and their attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle of all: how does the universe work at its most fundamental level? The story begins with an historical survey of the experimental and theoretical developments that led to the creation of the phenomenally successful 'Standard Model' of particle physics around 1975. But, despite its successes, the Standard Model left a number of key questions unanswered and physicists therefore continued in their attempt to find a powerful, all-encompassing theory. Now, more than twenty years after coming onto the scene, and despite a total lack of any success in going beyond the Standard Model, it is superstring theory that dominates particle physics. How this extraordinary situation has come about is a central concern of this book. As Peter Woit explains, the term 'superstring theory' really refers not to a well-defined theory, but to unrealised hopes that one might exist. As a result, this is a 'theory' that makes no predictions, not even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability has allowed it not only to survive but to flourish. The absence of experimental evidence is at the core of this controversial situation in physics - a situation made worse by a refusal to challenge conventional thinking and an unwillingness to evaluate honestly the arguments both for and against string theory. To date, only the arguments of the theory's advocates have received much publicity. NOT EVEN WRONG will provide readers with another side of this story, allowing them to decide for themselves where the truths of the matter may lie and to follow an important and compelling story as it continues to unfold.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Jesús Rubén Martínez 2011
    Copyright by Jesús Rubén Martínez 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Jesús Rubén Martínez Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Adventures of Luis Alvarez: Identity Politics in the Making of an American Science Committee: Bruce J. Hunt, Supervisor Alberto Martínez Tracie Matysik Michael Stoff Mark Raizen The Adventures of Luis Alvarez: Identity Politics in the Making of an American Science by Jesús Rubén Martínez, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2011 Dedication To my parents, Rubén and Angelina, for not keeping a language of secrets. Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance of professors Bruce Hunt and Alberto Martínez. Professors Neil Foley and Sahotra Sarkar helped spark two chapters that eventually formed the kernels for this work. David Kessler at the Berkeley Bancroft Library and Becky Willard at the University of Texas Pickle Center both helped me work through a tremendous amount of raw materials. Finally, I would like to thank Eleanor Fluharty for putting up with a dissertation writer. v The Adventures of Luis Alvarez: Identity Politics in the Making of an American Science Publication No._____________ Jesús Rubén Martínez, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisor: Bruce J. Hunt In the 1930s and 1940s, American atomic physicists developed an identity akin to those ethnic identities developed by Chicanos and African Americans in the 1960s.
    [Show full text]
  • 10 Physicists and Ph
    Physicists and Philosophers Hold Peace Talks The Atlantic, Dec 22, 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/12/physics-philosophy- string-theory/421569/ Physicists typically think they “need philosophers and historians of science like birds need ornithologists,” the Nobel laureate David Gross told a roomful of philosophers, historians, and physicists in Munich, Germany, paraphrasing Richard Feynman. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Fundamental physics faces a problem, Gross explained—one dire enough to call for outsiders’ perspectives. “I’m not sure that we don’t need each other at this point in time,” he said. It was the opening session of a three-day workshop, held on December 7 in a Romanesque-style lecture hall at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU Munich) one year after George Ellis and Joe Silk, two white-haired physicists now sitting in the front row, called for such a conference in an incendiary opinion piece in Nature. One hundred attendees had descended on a land with a celebrated tradition in both physics and the philosophy of science to wage what Ellis and Silk declared a “battle for the heart and soul of physics.” The crisis, as Ellis and Silk tell it, is the wildly speculative nature of modern physics theories, which they say reflects a dangerous departure from the scientific method. Many of today’s theorists—chief among them the proponents of string theory and the multiverse hypothesis—appear convinced of their ideas on the grounds that they are beautiful or logically compelling, despite the impossibility of testing them. Ellis and Silk accused these theorists of “moving the goalposts” of science and blurring the line between physics and pseudoscience.
    [Show full text]