Scientific Progress
Introduction
Scientific progress is when science, scientific theories, and fields make progress and in particular when they show improvement in scientific knowledge. Science is known to progress when at the end of the period, there appears to be more knowledge compared to the beginning. Scientific progress has been supported by different ideas such as ideas from empiricists, and philosophers such as Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend.
Empiricism is a theory that puts more emphasis on the role of empirical evidence in the development of ideas and not intrinsic ideas or norms. According to this theory, the source of knowledge is primarily the sensory experience (Hossain 2014). Empiricists have the idea that experience affords the marks of standards of knowledge and these standards may be used to decide the extent of our knowledge. Empiricism is a theory that denies the existence of objective certainty and the dialectical connection of the subjective and objective aspects of knowledge. Empiricists emphasize the fact that sense experience is the only factor that can be used to guide our understanding of the world. They also emphasized that it is the only technique and standard that is associated with knowledge and truth.
Empiricists believe that all concepts, knowledge, and scientific overviews are in the end reducible to perceptions and sensations. According to empiricists man acquires his knowledge through the five senses experience. This is by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching and a person can differentiate between a direct and indirect experience (Hossain 2014). Direct experience is when a person getting familiar with an object by themselves through the five senses. An indirect experience is when the subject is personally involved in the process of knowledge. Traditional empiricism stresses the impossibility of metaphysics and insists on the significance of the experience. An empiricist believes that all priori proclamations are logical and all synthetic proclamations are a posteriori.
Popper’s falsifications approach maintains that the theories of science are categorized by forecasts that observations in the future might appear to be untrue. Once a theory is falsified by such an observation, the response made by scientists is either revising or rejecting the theory. Scientists can also respond by maintaining the theory and altering a supporting hypothesis. In whatever way the scientists decide to respond, the main objective of the process is to produce new falsifiable predictions (Veronesi 2014). Popper maintains that the exercise of science is categorized by its persistence in testing theories contrary to experience and revise them based on the outcomes they get from the tests. Popper argues that his approach approves an outcome for the induction problem.
According to Popper, the probability of falsification characterizes the experimental sciences and enables the demarcation between science theories and the doctrines of metaphysics. The falsifiability of the theories of science is recommended by logic and science history could seem like common sense regulation (Veronesi 2014). If a theory avoids all the processes and appears not to be challenged by an observable element, it should not be taken into account. Popper also defends a predisposition theory of probability, whereby probabilities are understood as objective, mind-liberated elements of structures for experiments. Popper’s argument was contrary to the historicist effort to convey general policies that covered the history of people and rather contended in approval of individual methodology and logic based on a situation.
Kuhn maintains that science progress is different and has been changing in normal and revolutionary stages. The revolutionary stages are not just stages of speeded up progress but are qualitatively different from normal science. Normal science is similar to the standard collective representation of scientific development. According to Kuhn, mature science faces the interchanging stages of normal science and revolutions. Mature science operates inside a scientific paradigm. A paradigm develops from the standard investigation patterns within the investigation area. These patterns function as models of doing science inside that paradigm (Kuhn 2012). The paradigm that develops from the elementary patterns reflects the guidelines of doing science. Normal science is the everyday investigation that scientists engage in to fill gaps in the knowledge of science that are established in the prevailing paradigms. Kuhn argued that the paradigms contain difficulties that give rise to investigation irregularities. This results in outcomes that the paradigm fails to elucidate and reduces the confidence in the community of scientists in the paradigm. At a particular time, scientists will start to function out of the prevailing paradigm to find resolutions for these irregular outcomes and substitute paradigms will be established. According to Kuhn, the scientific revolution is when the prevailing paradigm moves to a different paradigm.
Lakatos develops a theory, based on the history of science and its rational reconstructions. Historical episodes have to be treated with respect and should not be transformed into mere illustrations of the principles of some methodology. There is a point that which a rational reconstruction is at variance with the history of science that is not a reconstruction of science any longer (Losee 2004). Lakatos argued that there will be deviations between the reconstruction that is dictated by a methodology and the real course of science. A methodological reconstruction differs from an ordinary repetition of historical developments. Lakatos outlined that all normative reconstructions must be supplemented by empirical external theories to explain the residual non-rational aspects.
The history of science is constantly richer than its rational reconstruction. Even though every rational reconstruction establishing a division between the internal and external history of science, it is still possible to evaluate the competing methodologies. Lakatos's recommendations for the assessment of competing methodologies include selecting a set of competing methodologies and elaborating on the rational reconstruction of scientific progress implied by each methodology (Losee 2004). Next is comparing each rational reconstruction against the history of science. Lakatos argues that his methodology makes rational more of the history of science compared to the other competing methodologies.
Feyerabend argued that there was no progress in science following the rational methodology. He continues to argue that if there has been any progress based on the rational progress, scientists must have not adhered to every rule that has been put down by the rationalists and hence embraced the slogan, “anything goes” (Farrell 2003). This means that anything including intellectual dishonesty may have a valued part to play at some time in the progress of science. It is the competitive pressure between the persistently held and discordant theories that make the development. The scientific methodology does not exist according to Feyerabend, therefore scientific progress is determined not only on the rational dispute but also on the combination of maneuvering, oratory, and publicity.
Feyerabend has taken his theory to an extensive political end because he argues that there is no true theory and that they should all be given equivalent periods. His argument poses that the immense science that is classified in books and comfortable with the administration inhabits a place in the Western culture lacking parity with the interchange of concepts and the progress of science (Farrell 2003). He states that equal weight should be given to competing ways such as astrology among others. Feyerabend argues that a complex medium that consists of unanticipated developments demand compound procedures. He disregards analysis that is founded on guidelines that have been placed and do not consider altering situations of history. Feyerabend states that anarchism is the remedy for epistemology and science philosophy.
Conclusion
Different people with different ideas have given their ideas about scientific progress. The idea of the empiricists about scientific progress is that sense experience is the only factor that can be used to guide our understanding of the world. Knowledge according to the empiricist is acquired through the five senses experience. Popper shares his idea through the falsification approach which maintains that the progress of science is its persistence in testing theories contrary to experience and revising them based on the outcomes they get from the tests. Kuhn uses the idea of paradigms and argues that mature science faces the interchanging stages of normal science and revolutions. Lakatos bases his theory on the history of science and its rational reconstructions and argues that historical episodes should be treated with respect. Feyerabend's idea was that science does not progress according to a rational methodology and science depends not only on the rational argument but also on the mixture of maneuvering, rhetoric, and propaganda.
References
Farrell, R. P. (2003). Feyerabend and scientific values: Tightrope-walking rationality.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Hossain, F. A. (2014). A critical analysis of empiricism. Open Journal of Philosophy, 2014.
Kuhn, T. S. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago press.
Losee, J. (2004). Theories of scientific progress: An introduction. Routledge.
Veronesi, C. (2014). Falsifications and scientific progress: Popper as skeptical optimist. Lett
Mat Int 1, 179–184 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40329-014-0031-7
