Philosophical justification and critique of science.
Evolution is the ultimate theory of modern science because it’s all about utility. Early modern scientists and philosophers of science dismissed formal and final causes in favor of material and efficient (i.e., mechanistic) causes. Galileo Galilei rejected final causes and endeavored to answer how things happened, not why. Francis Bacon spurned formal and final causes […]
The first edition of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species published in 1859 did not contain the word evolution (though evolved was the last word). By the sixth edition the word evolution was used 15 times, yet it was not defined. Nor did he specify what he called “the great principle of evolution”. Alas, it is much the same today.
Occam’s Razor (also called Ockham’s Razor) refers to a principle of parsimony or simplicity in modern science associated with the medieval monk William of Ockham. His principle states: “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” The word “entities” is ambiguous here: what should be minimized, the total number of entities of any kind or the number of kinds
The word intension is not as well-known as its homophone intention. The word intension denotes the intrinsic meaning of a word, also called the comprehension or connotation. It contrasts with the extension, which denotes the range of applicability or objects to which the word refers, also known as the denotation. For example, the intension of “boat” is “a
Creation is a fact. Creation is the oldest fact but creation as a paradigm is relatively new. Let me explain. The word “paradigm” was used by Thomas Kuhn for “universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners.” I would characterize a paradigm as a theme or
When Isaac Newton published his Principia with its laws of motion, he asserted their universal application. Since he had unified motion on the surface of the earth with the motion of the solar system, it was a powerful argument. Nevertheless, to claim universal application excessively extrapolated and interpolated far beyond any data available at the time. But you
The modern distinction between fact and value goes back to David Hume who argued that “is” does not imply “ought” — there is no way to get from facts to values. This contrasts with the Aristotelian philosophy in which everything has a nature so that what something is and what it ought to be is defined by
Mathematicians have built axiomatic systems since Euclid that have become more and more extensive and sophisticated. But Kurt Gödel performed a great service when he showed that there is much more truth to mathematics than could ever be formalized in an axiomatic system. Mathematicians gave up looking for a complete theory, except within limited domains
William Paley’s Natural Theology makes some important points: Whatever is done, God could have done, without the intervention of instruments or means: but it is in the construction of instruments, in the choice and adaptation of means, that a creative intelligence is seen. It is this which constitutes the order and beauty of the universe.
Parsimony is considered a desirable or even necessary characteristic of a scientific theory but what this means is not clear. There are many types of parsimony (see the article on Simplicity in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a list). The most common kind of parsimony is qualitative parsimony, often called Ockham’s Razor, which says that
