Scientific revolution: Science does not progress linearly. There are paradigm shifts.

Given by
Kuhn. Scientific revolution happens when lot of falsifications.

Views of science:

 Science is cumulative.
 Science is unified
 distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification
 There is a sharp distinction (or demarcation) between scientific theories and other kinds of
belief system
 sharp distinction between observational terms and theoretical terms
 Scientific terms have fixed and precise meanings

‘Seeing is not only the having of a visual experience; it is also the way in which the visual experience
is had’ : 3D box in 2D; rabbit head or duck head. Incommensurability: Two different paradigm shifts
cannot be compared. No common ground for choice.

Sociology of Science:
1) Robert Merton’s old sociology of science:
Mainstream sociology applied to science. Four norms of science:
 Universalism: personal ideas and attributes are irrelevant to scientific ideas
 Communism: common ownership of scientific ideas and results
 Disinterestedness: scientists are supposed to act for benefit of humanity, rather
than personal interests.
 Organized skepticism: Challenging and testing ideas given by others

Reward system. Fraud, plagiarism, libel and slander. Accusation of plagiarism. Publication as
a substitute for real recognition.

2) Strong Program
Robert Merton’s theory was called weak, so they brought strong programme. Given by David
Bloor. (The Mada Faka is still alive). Four tenets:
 Causation (Some cause/social conditon should be there which leads us to believe in
some theory eg religious beliefs)
 Impartility (no biases)
 Symmetry (for two very different beliefs, explanations should be similar)
 Reflexivity (principles should be applicable to sociology itself.) : Serious problem as
this leads to conclusion that strong programmers themselves admit that what they
are saying isn’t true, and strong program embraces this.

Truth does not explain beliefs bcz everybody thinks there beliefs are true. Tribal drought
example, e = mc^2 example. Both are beliefs held by people in their own small community.

3) Leviathan and Latour

Leviathan and Air Pump: Boyle vs Thomas Hobbes on whether vacuum exist or not. Boyle
couldn’t explain original question with his experimental setup, but he figured out how to ask
a new question which could be explained by his setup, and subtly made the new question as
the central point of interest. “Language game”. “
Manufacturing of facts: Coastline length example
 Latour: Laboratory Life: A group of people enter a lab where scientists are doing
experiments on molecular biology. Very significant research which will win noble prize. The
outsiders have no ideas of what science is, they view the lab as a manufacturing factory
where chemicals etc were input, and journals and reports came out. This viewpoint ignored
the human effort etc in the ‘processing’ part.

Realism & Antirealism: Suppose a statement is explained using electrons. Realists believe
electrons actually exist, while antirealist believe it is just a medium to explain and don’t exist.

1) NMA (No miracle argument): The no miracles argument says that this agreement between
theory and experience would be a miracle if science said nothing (at least approximately)
true about the world. (REALISM)
2) PI / PMI (Pessimistic meta induction): The pessimistic meta-induction is the argument that if
past successful and accepted scientific theories were found to be false, we have no reason to
believe the scientific realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately
true. (ANTIREALISM). There are two types of people in PI: one which are purely pessimistic,
another which are more subtle. They object to optimistic people without calling themselves
pessimistic.
3) UDT (Underdetermination argument): An evidence may not be sufficient to explain the law.
(Example multiple mathematical equations can pass through three points). (ANTIREALISM)

Explanation:
DN model. (Deductive nomological).

PETER LIPTON