Finish the skeptical dialogue

Now that you have learned about some key concepts in the philosophy of science and read about some of the most influential schools of thought, I would like you to try a little exercise. For this assignment

1- Go back to the 3.1.b The skeptic’s challenge at the beginning of this unit and read again the dialogue between Alice and Deb.

2- Imagine Deb and Alice meet again. Imagine, both have read/learn the same information you have read in this unit.

3- Create a new dialogue between them about what they (you) have learned. Each of them has to participate in the dialog for at least five times with something else than a yes/no answer) and the dialogue should incorporate concepts covered in this unit such as empiricism, realism, falsificationism, paradigm, etc…

The skeptic’s challenge
Our starting point is the desire to arbitrate the following dispute that arises when Alice,
who has been reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, is trying to explain
the exciting things she has learned about the Big Bang and the history of the universe to
her friend Deb.
Alice:. . . and so one second after the Big Bang the temperature of the universe was about ten
thousand million degrees, which is about the same as the temperature in the middle of the
explosion of a nuclear bomb.
Deb: Do you really buy all that stuff? Don’t you think it’s a bit far-fetched?
Alice:Of course I believe it, and I don’t think it is any more far-fetched than the fact that this
table we are sitting at is almost all empty space and that it is made of atoms so tiny that
millions of them could fit on the end of a pin.
Deb: Exactly, it is just as far-fetched and you are just gullible for believing it.
Alice:But that is what science tells us.
Deb: ‘Science’ doesn’t tell us anything; scientists, people like you or me, tell us things and like
all people they tell us what is in their interest to tell us.
Alice:What do you mean?
Deb: Isn’t it obvious? A used-car dealer will tell you that a car is a lovely little runner with one
previous owner because they want you to buy the car, priests tell you that you must come
to church so you can go to heaven, because otherwise they would be out of a job, and
scientists tell us all that nonsense so we will be amazed at how clever they are and keep
spending taxpayers’ money on their research grants.
Alice:Now you are just being cynical; First, I don’t think everybody lies or make up stories to get
what they want. I don’t, do you? Not everyone is out for themselves you know. And
second, I do personally experience technological advances everyday, that are the result of
scientific discovery.
Deb: And you are just being naïve; anyway, even supposing that scientists really believe their
theories, can’t you see that science is just the modern religion?
Alice:What do you mean?
Deb: Well, if you were living five hundred years ago you would believe in angels and saints and
the Garden of Eden; science has just replaced religion as the dominant belief system of the
West. If you were living in a tribe in the jungle somewhere you would believe in whatever
creation myths the elders of the tribe passed down to you, but you happen to be living here
and now, so you believe what the experts in our tribe, who happen to be the scientists, tell
us.
Alice:You can’t compare religious dogma and myth with science.
Deb: Why not?
Alice:Because scientists develop and test their beliefs according to proper methods rather than
just accepting what they are told.
Deb: Well you are right that they claim to have a method that ensures their theories are accurate
but I don’t believe it myself, otherwise they would all come to the same conclusions and
we know that scientists are always arguing with each other, like about whether salt or sugar
is really bad for you.
Alice:Scientific arguments have more to do with interpretation of the data, and interpretation of
the data could be unfortunately subjective to many aspects, regional, cultural, backgrounds,
etc.. And it takes time for theories to be proven but they will find out eventually.
Deb: Your faith is astounding – and you claim that science and religion are totally different.
They are both as you just said very subjective. The scientific method is a myth put about
by scientists who want us to believe their claims. Look at all the drugs that have been
tested by scientific methods and pronounced safe only to be withdrawn a few years later
when people find out how dangerous they are.
Alice:Yes but what about all the successful drugs and the other amazing things science has done.
Deb: Trial and error, that’s the only scientific method there is, it’s as simple as that. The rest is
just propaganda.
Alice:Trial and error. I can’t believe you really said that; scientific theories, like the Big Bang
theory, are proved by many experiments and observations, by many people working in
different fields of science. That is why we ought to believe them and that is what makes
them different from creation myths and religious beliefs.
Deb:
So you say but how can experiments and observations prove a theory to be true?
Alice:
I suppose I don’t really know. But if experiments and observations agree with
the theory, how can you say the theory is not true?
Deb:
We need to keep learning and talking about this. It is very interesting.
In this dialogue, one of the characters challenges the other to explain why her beliefs,
which are based on what she has been told by scientists, are any better supported than
belief in angels and devils or the spirits and witchcraft of animistic religions.
Of course, there are lots of things that each of us believe that we cannot justify directly
our-selves; for example, I believe that large doses of arsenic are toxic to humans, but I
have never even seen any arsenic as far as I am aware, and I have certainly never tested
its effects.
We all believe all kinds of things to be the case because we rely upon what others,
experts in the subject) tell us directly or indirectly.
This is method of gaining knowledge is called: by Authority.
This method can be very biased and sometimes leads to grave error, however it is
indispensable to living our daily lives.
We simply must accept a large amount of information on the basis of authority, if
for no other reason than we often do not have the time or the expertise to check it
out firsthand.
Most of us believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun, that we as human beings
evolved from animals that were more like apes, that water is made of twice as much
hydrogen as oxygen, that diseases are often caused by viruses and other tiny organisms,
and so on. If we believe these things it is because the experts in our tribe (the scientists)
tell us them; in that way, the causes of our beliefs are of much the same kind as those of
someone who believes what the local witch-doctor tells them about, say, the cause of
disease being the witchcraft of another person.
We like to think that there is a difference between our beliefs and belief in witchcraft
nonetheless; if there isn’t then why do we spend so much money on modern drugs and
treatments when a few sacrifices or spells would do just as well?
In the next sections we will investigate the nature, history and philosophy of the
scientific thinking. We will present different approaches and debates about what
science is and how scientists (the experts we are asked to
trust) acquire knowledge.
Our goal will be to determine if Alice, who believes in what science tells her, is entitled
to her faith, if the attitude of Deb belongs to the skeptical movement or a denial
approach, and whether it is or not any of those is the more reasonable one.
Enjoy!
Skeptic’s Challenge
Alice:
Remember that conversation we had about science and how you claimed for it to be just a “modern
religion?” Well, I realized that our little debate led to me think more deeply about it, and I ended
up reading about epistemology, the study of acquiring knowledge and how we are able to
differentiate that between truth and falsehood. If you think about it, when we had this conversation
last time, we went in empty-handed, we both don’t know what’s actually true and what’s not. We
just spoke on what we know is true.
Deb:
I agree! Of course, everyone has the freedom to choose whatever they want to believe. Thinking
back to our previous conversation, I noticed that my reasoning lacked skepticism and it was more
of denial. After watching a video that explained the five characteristics of science denial, my
argument to you about how tested drugs that are considered safe and then later withdrawn, was
based on one of the characteristics called cherry picking.
Alice:
You also mentioned how you believed that the scientific method was a myth, and it’s all about
trial and error. While you were right to an extent on that, it was more of trial and error based on
reasoning. Both inductive and deductive reasoning is used when scientists form a conclusion that
is true and logical from a hypothesis and theories. Inductive reasoning is used in the scientific
method, this helps scientists form a proper hypothesis/theory based upon a generalization they
have observed. And once they have come to a logical true conclusion, they use deduction reasoning
to apply their hypothesis to specific situations.
Deb:
When you put it that way, it makes much more sense as to why there is sometimes so much trial
and error but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Now that you mention it, I read about Karl Popper
and falsificationism. It’s a method of science that is distinctive because it’s where scientists will
begin with a speculation and prediction(s) then proceeds to testing, this process continues until it’s
proven wrong. But if the predictions are proved wrong during testing, the speculation made is
falsified and replaced with a new one.
Alice:
Karl Popper? I read about him too. I can see why science now uses both deductive and inductive
reasoning. Popper believed that inductivism was too liberal in distinguishing “good” science and
pseudo-science. If scientists were to solely use inductivism, we probably wouldn’t see nor learn
about the world as we do today. It would just be more of generalizing every theory or hypothesis.
Deb:
The Duhem-Quine thesis in a way showed us that in terms of what is limited within experimental
evidence and how it may not be adequate in determining a choice of theory.
Alice:
Which led to the belief that by gradually gaining scientific knowledge, the progress of science
would be joined by the correct scientific method. Therefore, the given theories have a higher
probability of being true.
Deb:
But that was before Thomas Kuhn, he characterized science with three stages: normal science,
crises, and scientific revolutions. Have you read about the paradigm shift?
Alice:
I found that very interesting, and if you think about it Deb, that’s what you ended up doing. You
had an original school of thought with how science worked based on what your prior knowledge,
and now that you have learned all of this new information, your stance and thoughts on science
have shifted!
Deb:
I’m glad that we continued this conversation. Not only did we learn more about the science world
and how it works, but we also learned where we stood within the subject. I considered myself an
anti-realist because I was looking at science from experience and sense rather than rationalizing
what the scientific theories can be logically. Alice, you are definitely a realist based on what you
were telling me about what you learned about the Big Bang, and how the table we sat at were made
up of tiny atoms and in reality it’s just an empty space.
Skeptical Dialogue
I am basing my dialogue off of Deb and Alice just finishing science class, and the
teacher has them discuss in partners things that they found interesting.
1. Deb: Hi Alice, that was such an interesting unit! One of the most intriguing points
was Karl Popper discussed pseudo-sciences. I love astrology so thinking it is not
an actual science is so weird, makes me wonder what category it falls under!?
2. Alice: Yes, I loved it! However, Karl included Falsification, which reveals scientific
predictions that can physically be tested. Pseudosciences are not capable of
being tested, most are opinionated based.
3. Deb: Yeah, but also his theory states “scientific theories can never be proven
true.” Which falls under everything in the universe is always changing.
4. Alice: True, true. Is science deductive or inductive?
5. Deb: From our professors discussion, it is actually considered to be both.
Deductive meaning it follows a specific conclusion with a general theory.
Inductive is a little bit different. Its specific conclusions who draws together a
general conclusion.
6. Alice: An example would be the great Charles Darwin. He didn’t have an initial
theory and results in his theory to be inductive. His theory is developed from an
accumulation of data.
7. Deb: Ultimately all our theories need to be proved and have support for evidence
to make them true. Jumping back to Popper he also mentioned “potential
falsifier” which is a prediction is proved to be wrong would be enough evidence to
reject the theory in a whole. Shows you just how important the scientific method
is!
8. Alice: I agree, do you remember what is the latin root for science?
9. Deb: It means knowledge, which empiricism is all about! Theory in which
experience causes knowledge. That has to be my favorite part of this whole unit.
Anyways, great talk Alice. You know a lot about this unit and I’m sure you’ll ace
the test:
10. Alice: Thanks. Also good work on your part. Keep up the work, and trying new
experiences tom widen that sense of knowledge.