Four Decades of Scientific Explanation

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822973022
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Four Decades of Scientific Explanation by : Wesley C. Salmon

Download or read book Four Decades of Scientific Explanation written by Wesley C. Salmon and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2006-06-15 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Aristotle stated, scientific explanation is based on deductive argument--yet, Wesley C. Salmon points out, not all deductive arguments are qualified explanations. The validity of the explanation must itself be examined. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation provides a comprehensive account of the developments in scientific explanation that transpired in the last four decades of the twentieth century. It continues to stand as the most comprehensive treatment of the writings on the subject during these years. Building on the historic 1948 essay by Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” which introduced the deductive-nomological (D-N) model on which most work on scientific explanation was based for the following four decades, Salmon goes beyond this model's inherent basis of describing empirical knowledge to tells us “not only what, but also why.” Salmon examines the predominant models in chronological order and describes their development, refinement, and criticism or rejection. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation underscores the need for a consensus of approach and ongoing evaluations of methodology in scientific explanation, with the goal of providing a better understanding of natural phenomena.

Scientific Explanation

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Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 0816657653
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (166 download)

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Book Synopsis Scientific Explanation by : Philip Kitcher

Download or read book Scientific Explanation written by Philip Kitcher and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1962-05-25 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific Explanation was first published in 1962. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Is a new consensus emerging in the philosophy of science? The nine distinguished contributors to this volume apply that question to the realm of scientific explanation and, although their conclusions vary, they agree in one respect: there definitely was an old consensus. Co-editor Wesley Salmon's opening essay, "Four Decades of Scientific Explanation," grounds the entire discussion. His point of departure is the founding document of the old consensus: a 1948 paper by Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation," that set forth, with remarkable clarity, a mode of argument that came to be known as the deductive-nomological model. This approach, holding that explanation dies not move beyond the sphere of empirical knowledge, remained dominant during the hegemony of logical empiricism from 1950 to 1975. Salmon traces in detail the rise and breakup of the old consensus, and examines the degree to which there is, if not a new consensus, at least a kind of reconciliation on this issue among contemporary philosophers of science and clear agreement that science can indeed tell us why. The other contributors, in the order of their presentations, are: Peter Railton, Matti Sintonen, Paul W. Humphreys, David Papineau, Nancy Cartwright, James Woodward, Merrilee H. Salmon, and Philip Kitcher.

The Foundations of Scientific Inference

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822971259
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis The Foundations of Scientific Inference by : Wesley Salmon

Download or read book The Foundations of Scientific Inference written by Wesley Salmon and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 1967-09 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not since Ernest Nagel’s 1939 monograph on the theory of probability has there been a comprehensive elementary survey of the philosophical problems of probablity and induction. This is an authoritative and up-to-date treatment of the subject, and yet it is relatively brief and nontechnical. Hume’s skeptical arguments regarding the justification of induction are taken as a point of departure, and a variety of traditional and contemporary ways of dealing with this problem are considered. The author then sets forth his own criteria of adequacy for interpretations of probability. Utilizing these criteria he analyzes contemporary theories of probability, as well as the older classical and subjective interpretations.

The Philosophy of Science

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262521567
Total Pages : 820 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (215 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Science by : Richard Boyd

Download or read book The Philosophy of Science written by Richard Boyd and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The more than forty readings in this anthology cover the most important developments of the past six decades, charting the rise and decline of logical positivism and the gradual emergence of a new consensus concerning the major issues and theoretical options in the field. As an introduction to the philosophy of science, it stands out for its scope, its coverage of both historical and contemporary developments, and its detailed introductions to each area discussed.

Logical Empiricism

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822970724
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Logical Empiricism by : Paolo Parrini

Download or read book Logical Empiricism written by Paolo Parrini and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays reexamines the origins of logical empiricism and offers fresh insights into its relationship to contemporary philosophy of science.

The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

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Publisher : Liveright Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1631491385
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (314 download)

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Book Synopsis The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science by : Michael Strevens

Download or read book The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science written by Michael Strevens and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.

Theory and Reality

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022677113X
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Theory and Reality by : Peter Godfrey-Smith

Download or read book Theory and Reality written by Peter Godfrey-Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.

Because Without Cause

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190269480
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Because Without Cause by : Marc Lange

Download or read book Because Without Cause written by Marc Lange and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not all scientific explanations work by describing causal connections between events or the world's overall causal structure. Some mathematical proofs explain why the theorems being proved hold. In this book, Marc Lange proposes philosophical accounts of many kinds of non-causal explanations in science and mathematics. These topics have been unjustly neglected in the philosophy of science and mathematics. One important kind of non-causal scientific explanation is termed explanation by constraint. These explanations work by providing information about what makes certain facts especially inevitable - more necessary than the ordinary laws of nature connecting causes to their effects. Facts explained in this way transcend the hurly-burly of cause and effect. Many physicists have regarded the laws of kinematics, the great conservation laws, the coordinate transformations, and the parallelogram of forces as having explanations by constraint. This book presents an original account of explanations by constraint, concentrating on a variety of examples from classical physics and special relativity. This book also offers original accounts of several other varieties of non-causal scientific explanation. Dimensional explanations work by showing how some law of nature arises merely from the dimensional relations among the quantities involved. Really statistical explanations include explanations that appeal to regression toward the mean and other canonical manifestations of chance. Lange provides an original account of what makes certain mathematical proofs but not others explain what they prove. Mathematical explanation connects to a host of other important mathematical ideas, including coincidences in mathematics, the significance of giving multiple proofs of the same result, and natural properties in mathematics. Introducing many examples drawn from actual science and mathematics, with extended discussions of examples from Lagrange, Desargues, Thomson, Sylvester, Maxwell, Rayleigh, Einstein, and Feynman, Because Without Cause's proposals and examples should set the agenda for future work on non-causal explanation.

Reproducibility and Replicability in Science

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Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309486165
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Reproducibility and Replicability in Science by : National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Download or read book Reproducibility and Replicability in Science written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-10-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the pathways by which the scientific community confirms the validity of a new scientific discovery is by repeating the research that produced it. When a scientific effort fails to independently confirm the computations or results of a previous study, some fear that it may be a symptom of a lack of rigor in science, while others argue that such an observed inconsistency can be an important precursor to new discovery. Concerns about reproducibility and replicability have been expressed in both scientific and popular media. As these concerns came to light, Congress requested that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conduct a study to assess the extent of issues related to reproducibility and replicability and to offer recommendations for improving rigor and transparency in scientific research. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science defines reproducibility and replicability and examines the factors that may lead to non-reproducibility and non-replicability in research. Unlike the typical expectation of reproducibility between two computations, expectations about replicability are more nuanced, and in some cases a lack of replicability can aid the process of scientific discovery. This report provides recommendations to researchers, academic institutions, journals, and funders on steps they can take to improve reproducibility and replicability in science.

Reading the Book of Nature

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521426824
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading the Book of Nature by : Peter Kosso

Download or read book Reading the Book of Nature written by Peter Kosso and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why should we believe what science tells us about the world? Observation data, confirmation of theories, and the explanation of phenomena are all considered in an introductory survey of the philosophy of science.

The Extended Case Method

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520943384
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis The Extended Case Method by : Michael Burawoy

Download or read book The Extended Case Method written by Michael Burawoy and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-05-27 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable collection of essays, Michael Burawoy develops the extended case method by connecting his own experiences among workers of the world to the great transformations of the twentieth century—the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and its satellites, the reconstruction of U.S. capitalism, and the African transition to post-colonialism in Zambia. Burawoy's odyssey began in 1968 in the Zambian copper mines and proceeded to Chicago's South Side, where he worked as a machine operator and enjoyed a unique perspective on the stability of advanced capitalism. In the 1980s, this perspective was deepened by contrast with his work in diverse Hungarian factories. Surprised by the collapse of socialism in Hungary in 1989, he journeyed in 1991 to the Soviet Union, which by the end of the year had unexpectedly dissolved. He then spent the next decade studying how the working class survived the catastrophic collapse of the Soviet economy. These essays, presented with a perspective that has benefited from time and rich experience, offer ethnographers a theory and a method for developing novel understandings of epochal change.

Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

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Publisher : Hackett Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780872204508
Total Pages : 474 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by : Merrilee H. Salmon

Download or read book Introduction to the Philosophy of Science written by Merrilee H. Salmon and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, c1992.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by : Thomas S. Kuhn

Download or read book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions written by Thomas S. Kuhn and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Merchants of Doubt

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Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1408828774
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Merchants of Doubt by : Naomi Oreskes

Download or read book Merchants of Doubt written by Naomi Oreskes and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. These scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers. Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly-some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

The Foundations of Scientific Inference

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822982943
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis The Foundations of Scientific Inference by : Wesley C. Salmon

Download or read book The Foundations of Scientific Inference written by Wesley C. Salmon and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After its publication in 1967, The Foundations of Scientific Inference taught a generation of students and researchers about the problem of induction, the interpretation of probability, and confirmation theory. Fifty years later, Wesley C. Salmon’s book remains one of the clearest introductions to these fundamental problems in the philosophy of science. With The Foundations of Scientific Inference, Salmon presented a coherent vision of the nature of scientific reasoning, explored the philosophical underpinnings of scientific investigation, and introduced readers to key movements in epistemology and to leading philosophers of the twentieth century—such as Karl Popper, Rudolf Carnap, and Hans Reichenbach—offering a critical assessment and developing his own distinctive views on topics that are still of central importance today. This anniversary edition of Salmon’s foundational work in the philosophy of science features a detailed introduction by Christopher Hitchcock, which examines the book’s origins, influences, and major themes, its impact and enduring effects, the disputes it raised, and its place in current studies, revisiting Salmon’s ideas for a new audience of philosophers, historians, scientists, and students.

Scientific Method in Brief

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107311527
Total Pages : 501 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Scientific Method in Brief by : Hugh G. Gauch, Jr

Download or read book Scientific Method in Brief written by Hugh G. Gauch, Jr and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-06 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fundamental principles of the scientific method are essential for enhancing perspective, increasing productivity, and stimulating innovation. These principles include deductive and inductive logic, probability, parsimony and hypothesis testing, as well as science's presuppositions, limitations, ethics and bold claims of rationality and truth. The examples and case studies drawn upon in this book span the physical, biological and social sciences; include applications in agriculture, engineering and medicine; and also explore science's interrelationships with disciplines in the humanities such as philosophy and law. Informed by position papers on science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences and National Science Foundation, this book aligns with a distinctively mainstream vision of science. It is an ideal resource for anyone undertaking a systematic study of scientific method for the first time, from undergraduates to professionals in both the sciences and the humanities.

Four Decades of Research in Science Education - from Curriculum Development to Quality Improvement

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Author :
Publisher : Waxmann Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3830970188
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis Four Decades of Research in Science Education - from Curriculum Development to Quality Improvement by : Silke Mikelskis-Seifert

Download or read book Four Decades of Research in Science Education - from Curriculum Development to Quality Improvement written by Silke Mikelskis-Seifert and published by Waxmann Verlag. This book was released on with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: