Plasticity In Psychology

What is Science? When it comes to the word ‘science’ most of the people have some kind of knowledge about science or when they think of it there is some kind of image related to it, a theory, scientific words or scientific research (Beyond Conservation, n.d.). Many different sorts of ideas float into an individual’s mind. Every individual has a different perception about science and how he/she perceives it. It illustrates that each person can identify science in some form. It indicates that the ‘science’ plays a vital role in our everyday lives (Lederman & Tobin, 2002). It seems that everyone can identify science but cannot differentiate it correctly from pseudo-science and non-science (Park, 1986). This essay will address the difference between science, non-science and pseudo-science. Then it will discuss possible responses to the question that what should we do when there is a clash between scientific explanation and non-scientific explanation. Then it will present a brief examination about the correct non-scientific explanation.

Kuhn argues that paradigms contribute to a sense of order within communities because the community’s research is based off of a prearranged set of accepted beliefs. Paradigmatic boundaries contribute to a sense of clarity that results from fact-gathering activities within scientific communities. In contrast, the collection of “mere facts”, which do not stem from paradigmatic boundaries of explanation, results in nothing but puzzlement (Kuhn, 2012, p. 35). As a result, Kuhn argues that paradigms are vital for establishing validity in regard to the questions and findings that are related to fact-gathering activities. In contrast, the absence of a paradigm would pose a major disadvantage for a hypothetical scientific community that does not use a paradigm-based approach for fact-gathering activities. Kuhn believes nothing but confusion could be derived from a collection of facts that belong to endeavors that are not rooted in a scientific community’s paradigm. In class, a paradigm was metaphorically compared to the glue that binds a scientific community together. This metaphorical comparison was used in an effort to illustrate the intimate relationship between paradigms and normal science that Kuhn describes in this book. After reading Kuhn’s book, and becoming well acquainted with his usage of paradigm in the context of his book, I could not agree more with the argument that he is making throughout this book. Therefore, it is obvious that paradigms mold fact-gathering activities related to normal science, that there are advantages to fact-gathering activities stemming from paradigms, and that absence of a paradigm would possibly plague a scientific community when scientists would try to approach fact-gathering

To begin understanding whether or not science progresses towards greater truths, truth must first be defined. It is the quality or state of conforming to fact or reality.1 As such a greater truth is one which better conforms to reality. Through scientific revolutions science progresses towards a taxonomy of greater truths. To accept this one must first understand that truths exist in science, that there are greater truths which replace falsified truths, and that science is continually building its way towards those greater truths through revolutions. For the purpose of this essay a scientific revolution is as Kuhn describes the shift from one accepted paradigm to a new one where a paradigm is considered a distinct set of concepts and theories. Science seeks to discover and explain the objective realities of our world and universe through these concepts and theories. Throughout history theories have been proposed, accepted, and replaced. This is the one constant of science in the long run; that it is always improving upon itself; our bank of knowledge is increasing. While there are periods of regression, today the world is definitively more scientifically advanced then it was a millennia ago. But why is it that we consider todays accepted paradigms to be true and the paradigms from antiquity false?

He argued that science in philosophy should be based on deductive reasoning and rational observations rather than weak falsification or verification that Kuhn stands for. Pooper (1963) rejected the complete dependence on believes and personal opinion as proposed by Kuhn (as cited in Schick, 2000). In fact, he believed in standardizing the scientific method to approach any conflict by challenging scientists to falsify their theories all the time. Here, Popper had stronger strategy that test theories constantly to achieve higher level of evidence. Moore (2010) stated that “ the statement of a meaningful theory for Popper was the ability to identify what would falsify it when was tested against the facts of experience.” This approach seems to be more practical by its uniform and cohesive structure to develop scientific theories. Thus, defending Pooper’s position in this paper was

A research paradigm is “the set of common beliefs and agreements shared between scientists about how problems should be understood and addressed” (Kuhn, 1962)

Scientists design experiments and try to obtain results verifying or disproving a hypothesis, but philosophers are the driving force in determining what factors determine the validity of scientific results.

The Structure of the Scientific Revolution by Thomas Kuhn explains how most people in the science community interpret accurately how they see science. The book begins with a chapter on how scientist have to have a set of belief that is the basis for what they are doing. When new phenomenon occur that have not been explained new theories are created on those events and tested so that people can learn why the event occurred in the first place. Then Kuhn elaborates on the route of normal science with how scientist do research on items that need to be explained or events and items that have been figured out but experiments need to be done to prove that the results are correct after which students learn about the research that has been done. These

Karl Popper argues that theories cannot be considered scientific if they do not leave any room for the possibility of being false (P.O.S. 473-474). He argues that scientists must strive to prove themselves wrong rather than right, because while there may be a hundred pieces of ‘evidence’ to support a theory, it only takes one to knock the entire idea to the ground. Thomas Kuhn disagrees with this generalization based on the argument that how science should be done is very different than how it is done and that scientists very rarely try to prove their theories false. Instead, Kuhn presents science not linear or cumulative as Popper suggests, but rather

“Normal science” is defined as “research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice” (Kuhn 10). Normal science is considered the practice of science within an established framework. The framework is largely built by established theories called paradigms. Kuhn explains that paradigms, accepted models and rules, must be in place in order for science to operate (Kuhn 11). A consensus among scientists in a discipline that a certain theory best explains a certain phenomenon give rise to the paradigm. Through the practice of normal science, scientists base their findings on the established paradigms and set out to explain phenomena in terms of the standard models. Many times, normal science results only in the established paradigm being reified. Contrastly, new scientific discovery occurs when researchers stray from the conventions (Kuhn 41). Helmreich diverges from this standard model of discovering new findings as he challenges commonly held beliefs, the paradigms, before a crisis prompts a new explanation. He has a preemptive approach that does not require an old theory to fail before a new one is presented, which would suggest that novel ideas could be proposed at

The accumulation of research will allow for various theories to be available. When this occurs, it is up to a general coconscious by the scientific community to distinguish what theory is best with regards to the amount of information they have accumulated. When agreed upon, the theory in question becomes the normal science. This paradigm will be used to account for

The following essay aims to discuss the inconsistencies between the inductivist and Popper’s points of view of science rationality of science in light of claims that the scientific method is inductive yet an inductive method is no. I think is rational to say that inductivist view of science has significant contradiction that Popper’s view solves. To support Popper’s view my argument will introduce the inductivist and falsificationsist views and I will focus in showing the issues of considered science as objective, scientific knowledge as proven and nature as uniform as well as the differences between inductivism and falsificationism to the creation of hypothesis.

In this essay I attempt to answer the following two questions: What is Karl Popper’s view of science? Do I feel that Thomas Kuhn makes important points against it? The two articles that I make reference to are "Science: Conjectures and Refutations" by Karl Popper and "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?" by Thomas Kuhn.

Popper and Kuhn held differing views on the nature of scientific progress. As seen in Popper’s falsification theory, he held that theories can never be proved only disproved or falsified. Once a theory is proved false we move on to the next. Kuhn, on the other, hand argued a new paradigm may solve puzzles better than the old one but you cannot describe the old science as false. Both seem to share the Kantian idea that the really real, independently existing world is completely unknowable. Kuhn further asserts that the empirical world, which is knowable, is partly constructed by our categories and concepts. The fundamental difference in their views are best stated in Kuhn’s own words, “A very different approach to this whole network of problems has been developed by Karl R. Popper who denies the existence of any verification procedures at all. Instead he emphasizes the importance of falsification, i.e., of the test that, because its outcome is negative, necessitates the rejection of an established theory. Clearly, the role thus attributed to falsification is much like the one this essay assigns to anomalous experiences, i.e., to experiences that, by evoking crisis, prepare the way for a new theory. Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.”(Kuhn, 145) As seen by this passage, the fundamental difference between Popper and Kuhn is that Popper disregards “verification” and Kuhn asserts that “falsification” only takes place once a

Assumptions in the title of this essay imply that results, theories and laws resulting from the current system of peer review multiple perspectives produce completely infallible objective truth, this is a false premise. Whilst the group of knowers known as the scientific community have collectively less bias than one lone knower trying to understand the universe, there is still collective and engrained level of institutional bias. The same problems of confirmation bias and expectation are present in a group of knowers just as they are with one single knower. According to Karl Popper (1902-1994) the best way to eliminate any expectation and confirmation bias was to falsify and disprove rather than confirm one’s hypothesis and predictions. Popper argues: no matter how convincing an argument or theory is, all that is needed to disprove it is one piece of valid counterclaiming evidence. Whilst this theory is valid on an individual level, it really becomes an effective tool in the objectivity of science on a large scale. Despite this attempt at objectifying and ‘protecting against’ error and bias it is inadequate due to inherent flaws in the scientific method. Induction, moving from the specific to the general, is the key element in scientific logic. Any theory or law ‘proved’ through this logic has some key flaws: the main flaw being that inductive logic can never be certain of any event happening or of any prediction. Richard van de Lagemaat

In this section we will compare and contrast Kuhn’s understanding of science with Popper’s understanding of science. These two methods are narrower when it comes to levels of scrutiny. They are also more open and willing to embrace change because they seek to change the status quo which is traditional science. Both scientists agree that the traditional method of science is too broad and ignores many different variables that could change the outcome of the results. They also concur on the idea that a subjective approach to science and reason is more suitable to reach a correct answer rather than shooting wildly in all directions and accepting the bullet that is closest to our target. Kuhn and Popper looked at traditional science as a method based on assumptions and estimates rather than exact truths or data. They do differ however in some ways. Kuhn does not believe that falsifying theories is necessary to ascertain the truth like Popper does. He simply believes that society is rapidly changing and therefore the methods of science must change also. Popper does not necessarily concern himself with sociological opinions or status quos. He focuses more on the procedures of traditional methods and works to disprove theories.