What is this thing called science

The idea of falsification was clarified and developed most by Popper. Falsificationism was in opposition to inductivism. Movements of the time like logical positivism were examples of neo-inductivism. Chalmers brings up some of the points of popper about the use of facts as confirmation in the fields of Astrology or in the case of Freud or Adler. Theories that are science don’t make some claim to be true, like in the inductive sense. But they’re held to be adequate. He holds therefore that science does not have induction.

He get’s in to the specifics of the asymmetry of Popper’s beliefs and the scientific system of thinking. He contrasts the Universal statements with the specific statements. Noting that Universals can be negated, specifics can not. Science can be said to involve the falsification of universal statements. You cannot however verify the universal statement from the specific statement and hence the asymmetry. Chalmers views the scientific system as containing a set of all possible observations (specific statements) that would support a universal statement. However there must be the possibility that the set of all observances for a universal statement contain an observance outside it.

There are some systems explained as being non scientific, but not incorrect either. There are statements such as ‘its is raining or it is not’ that are true, but don’t tell you anything. There are definitional statements, like the euclidean definition of the circle, which can’t be falsified, because that is their definition. And then non scientific statements in the way we understand them, like astrology, which say non scientific things. This distinction is interesting. Because the example included show that there are things that are not scientific that are true, and that are useful as well. In the case of the circle or the true, but useless statement.

These scientific theories must have the possibility of being inconsistent. Which is different from the mathematical view of things that the system must be consistent in some way. There is a need for some inconsistency, which is a risk, in order to do science. In many ways this turns the dogmatic system on it’s head. The most virtuous theories are those that expose themselves to the most possible developments of inconsistency, and yet are able to stand up to them. Even the attempt of standing up to them is a good thing. There are infinities of falsifiability. Both theories may be scientific, but one may expose itself to far fewer forms of testing that the the other, by the way the theory is formulated. Are there infinite or finite tests for these theories, and are there larger infinities for the tests of larger subjectibility?

This can lead to an extension of falsifiability to rush to make claims, that are scientific. If they are of merit, they will stand up. If they are not, they will receive falsifying feedback. Implicit in this is the subservience of observation to theory. Like the Christian understanding of philosophy and the theology, observation is the handmaiden of theory, much in the same way philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. The best scientific theories will be precise. This is an infinity in the opposite direction. On one hand you want your theory to be as wide ranging as possible, and on the other you want it to be as precise. The larger the problem is, the more problems that will extend out of it through lack of specificity. Unexplained behaviour will not have been accounted for, even though the theory predicted the underlying phenomena. These new problems are only problems in the light of old theories. There is no derivation of the theory through the problem on it’s own. Some examples of this outlined are the laws of motion from Aristotle to Newton. Aristotle explained a great deal of things with his theory, but it only went so far. Whereas Newtons theory of motion explained a far greater number of things with almost infinite clarity. (I say almost infinite here, as calculus can be seen as involving infinities when we speak of derivatives. So where derivatives of a function can be acceleration the function itself is for velocity of motion. Where there is an infinite prediction in the specificity of the prediction. You need only compute more digits.