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Discovering Evolution: VI. Science as a Process.

Facing. Theory instructs field work in Regency Eng-land. "Take a view, my dear Sir, through these glasses,” the caption reads, “and you will see that the whole face of nature is as blue as indigo." Note the field geologist's hammer and collecting bag; likewise, the theoretician's lack thereof, his morning coat, bar-rister's wig and Theory of the Earth discretely held be-hind his back. Charles Lyell, the object of the satire, trained as a lawyer, wore glasses and took much from the uniformitarian views of James Hutton, from whose Theory of the Earth, 19th century geologists, Lyell in-cluded, drew considerable inspiration. Cartoon by Henry De la Beche circa 1830. Reproduced from Rudwick (1975).

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Readings. Ayala, F. J. 2009. Darwin and the scientific method. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 106: 10033-10039. Chamberlin, T. C. 1897. The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. J. Geol. 5: 837-848. Grinnell, G. 1974. The rise and fall of Darwin's first theory of transmutation. J. Hist. Biol. 7: 259-273. Griffiths, P. E. 2000. David Hull's natural philosophy of science. Biology and Philosophy. 15: 301-310. Laudan, L. 1985. Science and Hypothesis. Springer-Ver-lag+Business Media. Dordrecht. (Chapter 14, pp. 226-251) Lehrer, J. 2010. The truth wears off. The New Yorker. (Dec. 13).

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Introduction.

We begin with a sampling of opinion on four important

topics in the philosophy of science.

1. Truth and progress

2. Confirmation bias

3. Self-correction

4. Extra-scientific influences.

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Truth and Progress.

Charles Sanders Peirce. “There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions … [and] by taking advantage of the laws of percep-tion, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and reason enough about it, will be led to the one true conclusion.” [Peirce, 1887, 10]

Karl Popper. “The idea of approximation to the truth is, in my view, one of the most important ideas in the theory of science … [L]ike the idea of truth … [it] presupposes a realistic view of the world. It does not presuppose that reality is as our scientific theories describe it; but it does presuppose that there is a reality” [Popper, 1999, 18; 21]

Larry Laudan.

“Prepared to concede that the theories of the day might eventually

be refuted … several late 18th century methodologists reasoned,

[that if] there is no instant, immediate truth, we can at least hope

to reach truth in the long run. Even if the scientist's methods do not

guarantee that he can get the truth on the first attempt, perhaps he

can at least hope to get ever closer to it.” [Laudan, 1981, 228]

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Confirmation Bias. Thomas Chamberlin.

“The moment one has offered an original explanation for a phenom-enon which seems satisfactory … parental affection takes posses-sion of the mind … There springs up also unwittingly a pressing of the theory to make it fit the facts and a pressing of the facts to make them fit the theory." [Chamberlin, 1897, p. 840]

J. R. Platt. “The difference between the average scientist's informal methods and the methods of the strong-inference users is somewhat like the difference between a gasoline engine that fires occasionally and one that fires in steady sequence. If our motorboat engines were as erratic as our deliberate intellectual efforts, most of us would not get home for supper.” [Platt, 1964, p. 348]

William O'Donohue and Jeffrey Buchanan “[Popper] argued that the refutation of competing hypotheses will never lead to a problem solution because ‘the number of possibly true theories remains infinite, at any time, and after any number of crucial tests.’ It is also likely that … vague, open-ended questions may be quite common in young sciences … or at the frontiers of more established sciences ... ” [O’Donohue and Buchanan, 2001, p. 5]

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Figure 6.1. “Preconceived Opinions v. Facts”. Commentary by Henry de la Beche on the phenomenon that now goes by the name of “confirmation bias”.

De la Beche: “This, Gentlemen, is my Nose. “

His Critics: “My dear Fellow! — your account of yourself generally may be very well, but as we have classed you, before we saw you, among men without noses, you cannot possibly have a nose.”

Inspiration of the cartoon was a geological imbroglio involving De la

Beche, Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick,

the resolution being the recognition of a new geological period, the

Devonian, bounded by the Silurian below and the Carboniferous

above. From Rudwick (1975).

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Self-Correction and the Scientific Method.

Richard Somerville. “Science … works by expert scientists doing research and publish-ing it in carefully reviewed research journals. Other scientists exam-ine the research and repeat it and extend it. Valid results are con-firmed, and wrong ones are exposed and abandoned. Science is self-correcting. . [Somerville, 2011, 514]

John P. A. Ioannidis. ”The ability to self-correct is considered a hallmark of science. How-ever, self-correction does not always happen ... History suggests that major catastrophes in scientific credibility are unfortunately pos-sible.” [Ioannidis, 2012, 645]

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External Influences.

Thomas Kuhn. “The two-sphere universe provided a fruitful guide to the solution of problems outside as well as inside astronomy. By the end of the fourth century B.C. it had been applied … to terrestrial problems, like the fall of a leaf and the flight of an arrow, and to spiritual prob-lems, like the relation of man to his gods. … Fundamental astro-nomical concepts had become strands in a far larger fabric of thought.” [Kuhn, 1957, 77]

Stephen K. Sanderson. “The British sociologists of science and their epigones apparently have failed to see the profound irony and self-contradiction in their work. Here are sociologists who think of themselves, it seems, as scientists, but who are nevertheless committed to the claim that sci-ence cannot lay claim to objective truth. Here are people who are using science to make the claim that scientific ideas are social con-structions rather than objective realities. Apparently it has not oc-curred to these sociologists to ask whether or not these ideas apply to themselves, and, if so, whether or not the ideas might be com-pletely self-refuting…” [Sanderson, 2001, p. 37]

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The Orbit of Mercury.

The often asserted claim that science advances conse-quent to Popperian hypothesis falsification / revi-sion is not entirely accurate.

The orbit of Mercury a case in point.

1. “According to R. Feyn-

man (1985,158), “Newton guessed the law of gravitation, calculated all kinds of consequences …, compared them with experi-ment – and it took several hundred years before the slight error of the motion of Mercury was observed. Dur-ing all that time, the theory had not been proved wrong … But it could never be proved right because tomor-row’s experiment might suc-ceed in proving wrong what you thought was right.”

Figure 6.2. In 1859, the ad-vance of Mercury’s perihelion was reported to be ~10% faster than predicted by Newtonian mechanics. Half a century later, General Relativity provided the required correction consequent to the bending of space by the sun’s gravitation.

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2. The perceived perihe-lion advance due prin-cipally to terrestrial precession. a. ~90% of remainder

explained by Newto-nian mechanics (NM)

b. The rest accounted for by general relativ-ity (GR).

3. But GR a 20th century

invention. a. Immediate reaction

to Mercury’s anoma-lous orbit was to pro-pose the existence of a new planet (Baum and Sheehan, 2003).

b. And why not? The existence of Neptune had been conjec-tured for similar rea-sons, and the planet subsequently discovered.

Figure 6.3. In 1859, Urbain Jo-seph Le Verrier proposed that a small planet inside the orbit of Mercury could account for the latter’s anomalous orbit. Top. In just this way, the existence of Neptune had been discovered in 1846. Bottom. As everyone knows, Vulcan eventually did turn up, albeit in another time and place.

turned up, albeit in another time and place.

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Three Important Points. 1. Established theories do not readily fold.

a. Auxiliary hypothesis adjustment (AHA) a more

frequent response to inconvenient observations. b. When reported sightings of Vulcan proved bogus

(Campbell, 1909; Baum and Sheehan, 1997), other ad hoc hypotheses were proposed.

i. Existence of a circumsolar ring of plane-

tesmals – yet to be observed.1

ii. Error in the inverse square law– changing the

exponent from 2 to 2 + 𝛿, where 𝛿 ≪ 1 – a non-starter that renders the moon’s motion anom-alous (Hall, 1894; Doggett, 1997).

2. Conjecturing a new auxiliary hypothesis or modifying

an old one proves nothing. a. It simply generates a new hypothesis,

b. Which then must be compared with additional ob-

servations.

1 The most common view pre-GR. See Iorio (2012) and Brown (2012).

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3. AH formulation / adjustment consequent to confirma-tion bias. a. Especially tempting in the case of

i. Models with parameters that cannot be esti-

mated independently of the observations to be explained.

ii. Hypotheses based on core presumptions that

one is unwilling to change for reasons external to the problem at hand.

b. AKA “wiggling the elephant’s trunk”.

Figure 6.4. Left. A 2-D elephant can be modelled using four pa-rameters. Right. By varying a 5th parameter, its trunk can be wiggled. From Mayer et al. (2010). To watch animation, go here.

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Ptolemaic Astronomy.

Assumed a more or less geocentric universe. 1. Reconciled observation with assumption of uniform,

circular motion.

2. Physical hogwash, but gave a good account-ing of the observations.

3. Retrograde planetary motion, in particular, via use of epicycles.

Figure 6.4. Planetary motion according to Ptolemy. The planet

moves on an orbit called an epicycle, which in turn, moves on

a larger orbit called a deferent. The deferent is not centered

about the earth, but about a nearby point called the eccentric

(+). In addition, there is a third point called the equant (+),

about which planetary motion is uniform in the sense that the

angular velocity of the center of the epicycle as viewed from

the equant is constant. Equant-earth distance much exagger-

ated in this figure for clarity. For further discussion, go to math-

pages.com; for American Mathematics Association review of

Math Pages, go here.

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4. Ptolemy’s methods were powerful. New observa-tions could always be accommodated.

“For its subtlety, flexibility, complexity and power the epicycle deferent technique ... has no parallel in the history of science until quite recent times. … “But it never quite worked. … No version of the system ever quite withstood the test of additional refined observations …” [Kuhn, 1957, 73-74]

a. With each “fix-up”, features that had previously

been accounted for, became anomalous.

b. Each observation, e.g., the motion of a particular planet, required its own accommodation.

By way of contrast, in Copernicus’ sun-centered model

certain qualitative features followed “naturally.”

1. In particular, Copernicus’ theory gave explanations

for

a. Retrograde planetary motion.

b. Mercury & Venus always observed near the sun.

c. The ordering of the planets.

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2. As Toulmin (1976, p. 389) observed, “Almost without exception, the ‘facts’ that supported Coperni-

cus’ position were not ‘novel’. Rather, his intellectual strategy

had the virtue of connecting together, in an intelligible way, a

string of features2 of the planetary system …”

3. But, quantitative prediction (Kuhn, 1957, 169)

a. Required ~ as many epicycles as Ptolemy.

b. Did not yield more accurate predictions.

4. Completing the Copernican revolution therefore fell

to others: Galileo; Kepler; Newton.

From which one infers:

1. One can account for observations with models that

have no physical reality – e.g., time series analysis.

2. Fixing up a model’s predictive power often achieved

by making model less realistic.

2 Compare with Darwin’s (1863) “intelligible thread of reasoning” (Lec-ture I)

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Self-Correction and the Scientific Method.

Self-correction provides a reason for preferring “sci-ence to quackery” (Laudan, 1981, 229). And indeed –

1. When scientists respond to extra-scientific criticism,

SCT inevitably comes to the fore.

2. E.g. Richard Somerville’s (2011) condemnation cum appeal to authority of climate change skeptics.

3. Likewise, Ayala’s (2009) emphasis on the “severe empirical tests” to which new theories are subjected.

Self-Corrective Thesis (SCT) decomposable into two assertions: 1. False theories eventually refuted.

2. Given a refuted theory, 𝑇, science

“possesses techniques for finding an alternative theory, 𝑇′, that is closer to the truth “[Laudan, 1981., 229, 246 # 9]

Formulating hypotheses, deducing predictions and at-tempting to falsify via comparison with observation the “hypothetico-deductive” (H-D) or “scientific” method.

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Figure 6.6a. Hypothetico-deduction, aka the “scientific method”. Ob-servations, along with intuition, experience and God knows what else, inform hypothesis formulation. Hypothesis-induced predictions are then compared with observations. Falsification requires hypoth-esis revision or replacement.

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Dogmatic Falsification (DF). Imre Lakatos (1970) derided the foregoing as

1. Simplistic and an

2. Erroneous description of how science actually works:

According to DF, Vulcan’s non-existence should have led to rejection of Newtonian mechanics.

But, of course, it didn’t.

Newtonian mechanics explained far too much to be lightly discarded.

What was needed was a correction that

1. Accounted for Mercury’s precession.

2. Accommodated the other cases for which Newto-nian predictions had been confirmed.

General relativity filled the bill some fifty years after the existence of Vulcan first posited (Forster, 2002; Feyerabend,1985, 56-58).

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What We Have Learned. Regarding falsification.

1. Even Popper (1999, 16ff) acknowledged that theories

can always be “immunized” against falsification.

2. Lakatos’ solution (1970, 132ff) was to distinguish the “hard core” of a “research programme” from a “protective belt” of auxiliary hypotheses (AHs).3

3. AH revision / replacement permits core survival in face of anomalous observations (Figure 6.6b).

4. According to Lakatos, AH formulation / revision “saves the scientist from being confused by the ocean of anom-alies. [I]t sets out a research programme which lists a chain of ever more complicated models simulating reality. … Newton first worked out his programme for a planetary system with a fixed point-like sun and one single point-like planet. It was in this model that he derived his inverse square law for Kepler’s ellipse. But this model … had to be replaced by one in which the sun and the planet revolved around their common centre

3 As discussed previously, the hard core of evolutionary biology is com-mon descent; the protective belt, the mechanisms successively pro-moted by Lamarck, Darwin and Wallace, their successors.

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of gravity … Then he worked out the programme for more plan-ets as if there were only heliocentric but no interplanetary forces. Then he worked out the case where the sun and the planets were not mass-points but mass-balls. … Having solved this ‘puzzle’, he started working on spinning balls and their wobbles. Then he admitted interplanetary forces and started working on perturbations. At this point, he started to look more anxiously at the facts. Many of them were beautifully explained (qualitatively) by this model, many were not. It was then that he started to work on bulging planets, rather than round planets, etc.” [Lakatos, op. cit., pp. 135-136]

5. Laudan’s (1977; 1981; Matheson and Dallmann, 2015) more general “research traditions”4 a. Likewise allow for changing AH’s, but also permit

the core to remake itself – e.g., evolutionary biol-ogy (Ruse, 2012; Pievani, 2012).

b. Evolutionary lineages, 𝐴 → 𝐵 → 𝐶⋯, an analogy.

i. 𝐴 and 𝐵 share core elements; likewise 𝐵 and 𝐶. But 𝐴 and 𝐶 share fewer.

ii. The number of shared elements continues to decrease as one proceeds to 𝐷, 𝐸, etc.

4 Just where Research Programs end and Research Traditions begin is arguably a matter of definition.

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Figure 6.6b. Auxiliary hypothesis formulation / revision and im-proved data acquisition / analysis (bolded) added to the basic H-D scheme.

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Regarding Observations.

1. “Improved” methods of data acquisition / analysis can

also rescue an endangered core5 (Figure 6.6b).

2. This the complement to AH adjustment.

Consilience.

1. Observations initially deemed unrelated to a theory

said to be consilient if they turn out to be predictable

therefrom (Whewell, 1847) – e.g., Darwin’s facts

(Lecture I).

2. Conversely, anti-consilient inputs necessitate hy-

pothesis revision. (Figure 6.6c).

3. The contrast especially important if we distinguish re-

sults generated by contributors to the research pro-

gramme in question from those generated by con-

tributors to other programmes.

4. The point being that the latter will likely be indifferent

to the demise or survival of the programme in ques-

tion.

5 Quotes about the word “improved” because data itself is “theory laden”.

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Figure 6.6c. Anti-consilient observations necessitate hypothesis core and / or auxiliary hypothesis revision.

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Beyond Hypothesis and Observation.

1. Considerations external to the problem at hand pro-

mote “confirmation bias” (Figure 6.6d) consequent to

a. Scientific proclivity – “How science should be.”

b. Ideological proclivity – “How the world should be.”

2. Examples:

a. Acceptance (Powell, 2001) of Kelvin’s age of the

earth because Lord Kelvin was “the highest authority in

science now living” [Burchfield, 1990, p. ix]

b. Acceptance of Bathybius and Eozoön (a presumed

mid-Precambrian fossil) because

“early evolutionists thought these imaginary creatures must

exist, so they created them” [Gould, 1980, p. 16].6

c. Rejection of transmutation in England pre-Origin

because materialism an existential societal threat.

6 Those that demurred, e.g., G. C. Wallich, were ignored (Rupke, 1976).

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Figure 6.6d. Considerations external to the problem at hand typically promote core stabilization via the adjustment of auxiliary hypotheses and data acquisition, analysis and interpretation.

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In Tres Partes Divisa Est.

Falsifiability, Popper’s cri-terion of demarcation, es-sential for self-correction. 1. Anticipated by C. S.

Peirce’s (1877) three-way decomposition of the scientific method.

a. Abduction: Hypoth-esis formulation in re-sponse to unantici-pated observations.

b. Deduction: Logical derivation of implica-tions.

c. Induction: Testing predictions by broadening orig-inal observations to a larger sample.

2. Peirce claimed the scientific method so defined, is

self-correcting and distinguishable from other forms of reasoning.

Figure 6.7. Charles Sanders Peirce, 19th century American probabilist and philosopher.

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3. Laudan (1981, 236ff) to the contrary maintains that Peirce’s argument restricted to the claim that succes-sive estimates of probability converge. “Peirce simply cannot handle a case where an [sic] hypothe-sis (of the form [the value of]"A is B") is replaced by a con-ceptually different one (say "A is C”)7. [op. cit., p. 243]

4. A-D-I nonetheless a fair description of Darwin’s evo-lutionary theorizing pre-natural selection. a. Darwin’s unexpected observations: Species dis-

tributions in time and space (Archibald, 2017). b. His abducted hypotheses: Isolation and habit

theories (Grinnell, 1974; 1985).

c. His deductions and inductions: the contents of his “transmutation” notebooks (Lecture II).

5. Alternatively, one can view Darwin’s initial evolution-

ary musings as entailing

a. Core (descent with modification) retention;

b. AH adjustment (isolation and habit theories).

7 For a broader assessment of Peirce’s philosophy, see Burch (2014).

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6. Example: Isolation theory (Grinnell, 1974) required

dispersal to remote habitats where new populations

could differentiate – a problem for large animals.

7. Accordingly, Darwin

“began … to speculate on … land bridges … The idea of elevation and subsidence of land masses was pressed into service with mounting vigor until Darwin had the entire earth in motion.” [op. cit., p. 266]

a. And when anomalies such as old / new world mon-

key distributions persisted,

b. CD conjured up a mid-Pacific continent formed

from the now separate land masses of Asia, Africa,

Australia, and America throughout which species

had spread prior to present day the continents’

drifting apart! (loc cit. p. 270].

c. Darwin also toyed with what Grinnell (1985) called

his “habit theory”.

i. Changing behavior selects for anatomical

change.

ii. Bear into whale example in Origin 1st edition.

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Self-Correction and the Sociology of Science.

Popper (1999) attributed scientific progress to what he called “critical discussions”, i.e., to attempted falsifica-tions and responses thereto.

In contrast, David Hull identified social factors as key to understanding how science works – specifically “competitive cooperation,” which he believed to be

1. An unavoidable consequence of scientific practice. "Science is a matter of competitive cooperation, and both charac-teristics are important. The most important sort of cooperation that occurs in science is the use of the results of other scientists' research. This use is the most important sort of credit that one scientist can give another. Scientists want their work to be acknowledged as original, but for that it must be acknowledged. … For such acceptance, they need the support of other scientists. One way to gain this support is to show that one’s own work rests solidly on preceding research. The desire for credit (i.e. competi-tion) and the need for support (i.e. cooperation) frequently come into conflict. One cannot gain support from a particular work un-less one cites it, and this citation automatically confers worth on the work cited and detracts from one's own originality." [Hull, 1988, 318] 2. I.e., I cite you; you cite me.

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2. From which “reciprocal altruism”, the mechanism by which science self-corrects follows.8 “Scientists are so conscientious about producing dependable work because their allies tend to incorporate that work into their own, usually without testing it, and their opponents are just as likely to expose it to careful scrutiny. Erroneous views are liable to hurt one’s opponents, but they are even more likely to dam-age one’ allies [and oneself]. Prior to publication, scientists expose their manuscripts to their allies. Afterwards critical scru-tiny comes from their opponents. The self-correction so im-portant in science does not depend on scientists presenting to-tally unbiased results but on other scientists, with different bi-ases, checking them,” [op. cit., 320-221, Emphasis added]

Hull’s mechanism breaks down when views are widely shared. 1. Such views can be

a. Shared scientific opinions (SSOs) or

b. Extra-scientific opinions (ESOs).

8 See Sanderson (2001, 37) quoted above.

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2. SSO’s reflect deference to prevailing scientific opin-ion, e.g., a. Planet Vulcan (or a circumsolar ring of plane-

tesmals) had to be there to square observation with Newtonian mechanics, which had to be right.

b. Geological estimates of the earth’s age had to be

abbreviated to square them with Kelvin’s unas-sailable mathematics.

c. Bathybius haeckelii had to be the urschleim be-cause i. The theory of evolution demanded abiogenesis

way back when, and

ii. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if relic organisms were still with us?

With the result that not so prominent naysayers like G. C. Wallich (1875) could be ignored by luminaries like Huxley with impunity.

d. Piltdown man was genuine because everyone knew that big brains were a necessary precursor to tool use which selected for upright posture.

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Figure 6.8. Bathybius haeckelii, as drawn by Ernst Haeckel. Calcium carbonate inclusions, christined coccoliths by Huxley, turned out to be the remains of pelagic algae that had drifted to the ocean floor. Bathybius itself proved to be an inorganic precipitate (𝐶𝑎𝑆𝑂4). Reproduced from Rehbock (1975).

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Figure 6.9. Piltdown man restored. The hoax consisted of human skull fragments, orangutan teeth and jaw fragments, all stained so as to appear ancient. (Wellcome Collection Image M0013579).

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5. ESOs can reflect ideological proclivity and the socie-tal milieu in which scientific endeavors take place.

a. Piltdown man (again): European ancestry of mod-ern man – How could it have been otherwise?

b. Pre-WWII, everyone knew that unfettered repro-duction by “morons” (Sanger, 1922) a dire threat.

6. ESO’s also consequent to a. Sociology of science: the ongoing jockeying for

power, conflicts, shifting alliances, competition for grants … in which scientists engage. (Hull, 1988).

b. Personal ambition.

7. ESOs often promote exuberant advocacy.

a. Sedgwick’s 85 page denunciation of Vestiges.

b. The eugenics movement, motivated by the vision of

“a world not burdened by the weight of dependent and delin-

quent classes … [an] age … inspired by a spirit of adventure

and romance that would indeed produce a terrestrial paradise.”

[Sanger, 1922, 266]

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8. ESOs can foster Faustian bargains, e.g.,

a. Overly “optimistic” interpretation of one’s data – Chamberlain (1897) quoted above.

b. Silence of scientific establishment, including Hux-ley and Darwin, when Owen (1849) pilloried for raising the possibility of transmutation (Secord, 2000).

c. Silence of nearly all Mendelian geneticists RE eu-genics and its calls for sterilization – Thomas Hunt Morgan (first genetic maps) a notable exception (Paul & Spencer, 1995).

d. Konrad Lorenz’ ethological justification9 for elimina-

tion of untermenschen in western Poland so as to

make room for half a million German colonists

(Deichmann, 1996, 185ff; Klopfer, 1994; 1999).

9 Lorenz believed that behaviors benefitting whole populations are main-tained in the wild, but lost when group selection is relaxed under domes-tication, especially when races interbreed. He believed this applied to man as well as to animals, the result being degeneration of human pop-ulations relocated to cosmopolite cities. These ideas were highly com-patible with National Socialism..

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Table 6.1 Pauses in the March of Scientific Progress.

Case Duration Presumptive Cause

Earth’s Age ~40 y Scientific Authority (Kelvin)

Bathybius ~20 y Scientific Expectation (1st Life Undifferentiated Protoplasm)

Planet Vulcan

~50 y Scientific Expectation

(Newtonian Mechanics)

Piltdown Man

~50 y Scientific Expectation (Big Brains 1st);

Ethnic Chauvinism (European Ancestry of Modern Man)

Eugenics 60-70 y Scientific Authority (Genetic Determin-

ism); Ideology (Ethnic Chauvinism)

Fixity of Species1 50 y

Ideology (Maintenance of Prevailing Social and Religious Order)

Lysenkoism 35-40 y Political Authority; Ideology (Stalinism; New Soviet Man)

1. From Philosophie Zoologique (Lamarck, 1809) to The Origin (Darwin, 1859).

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Science as Problem Solving.

SCT related to idea that science progresses.

1. If self-correction in doubt, so is progress. Yet …

“At the level of the practical applications of scientific knowledge

it is incontrovertible that the science of the year 2000 has

solved problems not solved by the science of the year 1900…"

[Losee, 2004, p. 158]

2. However, in light of preceding counter-examples, it

may be more useful inquire as to

a. The time scales on which SCT holds and

b. The circumstances that promote self-correction

vs. those that impede.

In which regard, Laudan’s (1977) approach relevant.

1. Along with Lakatos, Laudan acknowledged that rates

of problem solving vary with time and circum-

stance.

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2. Equates scientific progress with problem solving,

thereby setting the self-correction question aside.

3. Example: Tyco Brahe’s modified geocentrism ap-

peared more consistent with observation than Coper-

nicus’ model. In particular, Tycho accounted for

a. Absence of stellar parallax without requiring the

assumption of “improbable” distances.

b. The fact that a stone dropped from a tower falls

straight down.

c. Obviated the need to postulate a force strong

enough to move the earth.

Figure 6.10. Left. Tyco’s model of the solar system. Right. The giant sextant built by the king of Denmark failed to reveal stellar parallax.

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4. Likewise, the acceptance of

a. Uniformitarian geology appeared to obviate the

need for catastrophes of enormous magnitude.

b. Kelvin’s calculations appeared (more or less) to

reconcile geology with thermodynamics.

c. Huxley’s interpretation of Bathybius appeared to

confirm the expectation that earliest life forms were

composed of undifferentiated protoplasm.

5. Enumeration of individual cases, while interesting,

says little about problems of self-correction, progress,

etc., in general.

6. What is needed is a more general approach in which

a. Intensity of investigatory effort, and

b. Observations not yet reconciled with prevailing

theories

c. Are treated as dynamical variables.

d. Subject to intra- and extra scientific forcing.