SOLVING THE DEMARCATION PROBLEM USING THREE THEORIES Essay

To accurately determine wether creationists should be involved with scientists in public debate, or in scientific debate at all, one must accurately define the institution that scientists represent. The issue present is the ability to provide an accurate definition of science. As Ruse stated “it is simply not possible to give a neat definition” (Ruse, 1982), however Ken Ham attempts to define science through the linguistics route. Using the origin of the latin word

Within philosophy, there has long been a question about the relationship between science and religion. These two systems of human experience have undoubtedly had a lot of influence in the course of mankind’s development. The philosopher Ian Barbour created a taxonomy regarding science and religion that has become widely influential. His taxonomy postulates that there are four ways in which science and religion are thought to interact. The four categories are: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. By using articles from a select few philosophers, theologians, and scientists, it is clear to see the ways in which these two systems of human experience are categorized in the four categories presented by Ian barbour. However, it will be apparent that the category of conflict may be seen as the most dominant in regard to the interaction between science and religion.

There are some demarcations to science from pseudo-science and non-science (Hansson, 2008). Science aims to unravel the way the natural world is and explain how it is and why it works in a particular manner (Hobson, 2001 & Bunge, 1982). It answers few of these questions by demonstrating the cause and the effects of various actions by presenting in descriptive and explanatory claims (Parse, 1995). Scientists prove their findings by explaining

Ruse states that for a theory to be considered scientific, it must have five characteristic features. These five features include: natural law must guide the theory, it must make explanatory reference to natural law, it must be

Philosopher Karl Popper is widely known for his rejection of classical inductivism, the idea that scientific knowledge is derived only from observation, and also his support of empirical falsification, the idea that scientific theories cannot be proven correct, but they can be proven false. In other words, empirical falsification means that theories can and should be closely and thoroughly examined by decisive experiments. In Popper’s view, a claim must be falsifiable, or testable, in order for it to be scientifically true; if a hypothesis cannot be refuted, then it is not a scientific claim. Untestable ideas and theories within science are dubbed “pseudo-science” by Popper, because they have no falsification. Things like Anthropology and

Pseudoscience can be defined as any claim, belief, or practice that is shown as scientific, but that claim has not been tested or proved using the scientific method. Pseudoscience is so prevalent today as it is used in marketing efforts. It has the capability to make many consumers gullible because they see something like “9/10 professionals recommend this product”, and think, “Oh hey, if it’s so highly recommended, then it must work. It must be good.” Many different industries use pseudoscience, including the cosmetic industry, healthcare…an example of a pseudoscientific claim could be the heavily debated argument on whether or not vaccines cause autism. There’s articles saying that research proves that they do, and there’s articles saying that research says that they don’t.

In the three-part informative bibliography “Karl Popper, the enemy of certainty,” published by The Guardian, scientist and philosopher Karl Popper’s perspective on science is identified and discussed. Author Liz Williams describes how Karl Popper was driven by a passion for learning and understanding the world around him, and eventually grew to reject the ideas of empiricism and positivism. Popper states that deductive reasoning, rather than inductive reasoning, should be used to evaluate a theory based on the idea that proving a theory false provides a stronger argument compared to proving a theory true. Popper also argues that theories cannot be considered scientific theories unless they are able to be proven false, or are falsifiable. They must be able to be tested, and have the ability to be proven false through those tests, before it can be considered a scientific theory. Popper argues that scientific revolutions come about

Falsifiability, as defined by the philosopher, Karl Popper, defines the inherent testability of any scientific hypothesis.

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.

believable or it is conceivable that it is false. This means that we can’t really know that anything we perceive

Unlike inductivists, falsificationists believe that there is no way to conclusively prove that a theory is true. Consequently, they will resist stating that they’ve proved a theory to be true. Instead, falsificationists will consider a theory to be true so long as it has not been proven to be false. Unlike the strict five-step process held by the inductivist account of science, falsificationists hold that scientific progress comes about “by trial and error, by conjectures and refutations” (Chalmers 60). In the falsificationist picture, theory change happens constantly, and this process is what constitutes scientific progress. “It can never be said of a theory that it is true, however well it has withstood rigorous tests, but it can hopefully be said that a current theory is superior to its predecessors in the sense that it is able to withstand tests that falsified those predecessors” (Chalmers

In the article, "Science: Conjectures and Refutations", Karl Popper attempts to describe the criteria that a theory must meet for it to be considered scientific. He calls this puzzle the problem of demarcation. Popper summarizes his arguments by saying, "the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability." Kuhn

Karl Popper is commonly regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science in the 20th Century. He is well known for his rejection of the inductivist viewpoint of the scientific method, in which one uses observation to propose a law to generalize an observed pattern, and later confirm that law through more observation. Popper states that “induction cannot be logically justified” (Popper 14). Inductivism relies on the process of inductive reasoning which is a logical process in which multiple premises, all thought to be true and found to be true most of the time, are combined to obtain a conclusion and in many cases formulate a law or theory. Popper rejected the inductivist viewpoint in favor of a theory called empirical falsification which holds that a theory can never be proven, but it can be falsified, and therefore it can and needs to be scrutinized through experimentation.

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

Laudan (1983) claimed that the problem of demarcation can be traced back to ancient Greece and Aristotle. Aristotle asserted that from general laws one can deduce scientific theories that are consequently truthful statements. Pseudoscientific theories according to Aristotle are not deductively formulated and therefore cannot be considered scientific. However this method of demarcation is flawed: pseudosciences such as astrology can be vacuously true and most are reluctant to say astrology is scientific. We can already see from this early stage that the distinctions between science and pseudoscience are murky and the formulation of demarcation can be challenging.