Unquestionably the most significant and challenging development in the historiography of science in the last decade is the theory of Thomas S. Kuhn. Without defending Kuhn’s questionable subjectivist and relativistic philosophy, his contribution is a brilliant sociological insight into the ways in which scientific theories change and develop.
Essentially, Kuhn’s theory is a critical challenge to what might be called the “Whig theory of the history of science.” This “Whig” theory, which until Kuhn was the unchallenged orthodoxy in the field, sees the progress of science as a gradual, continuous, ever-upward process; year by year, decade by decade, century by century, the body of scientific knowledge gradually grows and accretes through the process of framing hypotheses, testing them empirically, and discarding the invalid and keeping the valid theories. Every age stands on the shoulders of and sees further and more clearly than every preceding age. FULL ARTICLE
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Rothbard uses an interesting example:
“The angry treatment accorded to Jensen, Shockley, and the other theorists of inequalities of racial intelligence by their fellow scientists, is a case in point. For underlying the bulk of the scientific reception of Jensen and Shockley is the idea that even if their theories are true, they should not say so, at least for a century, because of the unfortunate political consequences that may be involved.”
Despite all the predictable accusations of Nazism, Arthur R Jensen himself detests politics and identified himself as a libertarian:
http://www.againstpolitics.com/2009/07/22/arthur-r-jensen-against-politics/
I had a minor epiphany yesterday regarding methodology. In a past thread, I was arguing with someone (sorry, I forgot who) about praxeology being unfalsifiable, and he brought up evolutionary theory, saying that it isn’t falsifiable either, since it can’t predict what future species will look like. I responded with the old Haldane canard about “fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian”, saying that that is indeed a falsifiable claim of evolutionary theory, although not one as specific as some might like. It occured to me that praxeology makes a similar claim; that a socialist economy will never be as efficient as a free market economy. This is not a terribly specific prediction, but it is falsifiable; all you’d need to do is present a socialist economy that’s healthier than a comparably sized free market one.
So, by my own standards, praxeology must be at least as scientific as evolutionary theory. So maybe there’s hope for me yet! *grin* (Or maybe not; I still don’t agree with Mises’ idea that a science can be true a priori.)
I also thought of a way to combat “physics envy” by practitioners of less “hard” sciences. Why is physics considered the “hardest” science? Because its theories have been so rigorously tested and honed by attempts at falsification. But this is true because it is so *easy* to attempt falsification for physical theories (although the jury about that is out regarding the falsifiability of string theory). For theories like economic theories or evolution, it is much *harder* (though not entirely impossible) to attempt falsification. So, by this definition, economics is the “hard” science, and physics is the “easy” science!
If my theory is “all swans are white”, how many swans do I need to prove it? One, two … a million?
If my theory is “all swans are white”, how many swans do I need to show it’s *probably* true? One, two … a million?
If my theory is “all swans are white”, how many black (or non-white) swans does it take to show my theory is false? One, period.
Science moves forwards when black swans can be presented without fear of repercussion. (Today via youtube.)
Note, that even a black swan can be waved away. “Oh, it’s only dirty.” -or- “Huh? You call that a swan?”
So what is the point? That there is some positivistic base to hold empirical science together? Uh … no. (Though certainly belief in reality is needed to conduct science.)
Note when F.A. Hayek wrote that the economic sciences are different than the physical sciences because they involve human actors, Karl Popper reading this replied, but it’s the same problem in the physical sciences. After all, how do you define swan except in a ethical way? That is there is an ethical component to our theories. “All swans are white” is a viewpoint. It’s a *way* of viewing things. If it’s right, it’s more than that. But first and foremost it’s a *way* of viewing things.
Karl Popper’s ultimate point was that ideas taken seriously have consequences, and we need to pay attention to those consequences to see when they don’t play out. This is true in the study of math and logic just as much as in the study of physics. It’s true in economics just like it is anywhere else. Sadly, it would seem many Austrian economists would confuse Popper with early 20th century positivism. (And I suppose there’s reasons for this, though ultimately not good ones.)
Popper’s philosophy shows why it is so important to have a free society. We need a society where the we can honestly see the consequences of our theories and ideas and thus see their errors. We need a society where we can point out black swans. We need a society where we can tell the emperor he has no clothes on.
But Kuhn takes Popper’s message and turns it upside down. It’s okay to just follow along with the reigning paradigms, after all that’s how science works! And how the academics loved him for it. Kuhn elevation into world of acdemia is a sad tale, and how sad it is to see someone like Rothbard, tenatively embracing part of his ideas. (The wrong part I might add.)
Kuhn *unintentionally* describes exactly how science progresses in a *closed* society. In a closed society the truth is given to us via authorities, and those authorities can’t be questioned (via youtube or whatever). However, when so many anomalies keep showing that the all mighty authorities just can’t be right, then in order to maintain their authority, they have to revise their theories. (Ha, a revolution comes about.)
However, in an open society, we can have revolutions every day. A revolution comes about just as quickly as a price changes in a free society. Kuhn thesis operates only where there is intellectual price fixing. Think about it.
I have to run …
Read Popper, not Kuhn.
matt at anarchyjapan.com wrote:
“…But Kuhn takes Popper’s message and turns it upside down. It’s okay to just follow along with the reigning paradigms, after all that’s how science works!…”
I think that the difference is that Kuhn’s theory is descriptive, while Popper’s is prescriptive. In other words, Kuhn’s theory is about how science *is* done, while Popper’s is about how science *should be* done. If that is true, there is no inherent contradiction between the two.
“I think that the difference is that Kuhn’s theory is descriptive, while Popper’s is prescriptive.”
I would say the above statement makes as much sense as and is as true as the following statement:
“The difference is that (Keynesian) macroeconomic theory is descriptive, while Austrian economics is prescriptive.”
@matt at anarchyjapan.com:
I disagree. Kuhn’s theory is basically a theory of the *sociology* of science; it describes how scientists do their work, and takes into account how scientists (like everybody else) tend to get set in their ways as they get older. Popper’s theory is a theory of the *philosophy* of science; it explains how scientists should do their job. So I think you’re comparing apples and oranges.
Also, both Keynesian and Austrian theory *should* be descriptive, since the science of economics should limit itself to describing how economies work, and predicting what the results of economic policies will be. That’s not to say that economists (as informed citizens, not as economists) can’t give recommendations regarding economic policies. But giving recommendations informed by science assumes that a certain outcome is preferred, and as such is not economic *science* per se; science is value free.
“… it describes how scientists do their work.”
To me this is like saying scientists are zebras that we go out into the wild and study. We don’t need to do that. We can simply ask people what they are doing. This would seem to be more efficient.
” … science is value free.”
Reality is value free, but certainly not science.
matt at anarchyjapan.com wrote:
“To me this is like saying scientists are zebras that we go out into the wild and study. We don’t need to do that. We can simply ask people what they are doing. This would seem to be more efficient.”
Well, ethnologists study the actions of zebras in the wild, sociologists study the actions of people “in the wild”, what can I say? And scientists are people. Besides, whether we can “simply ask people what they are doing”, and get the truth, is a very debatable point. The people you ask might not be honest, even with themselves. How many people do you know (socialists, perhaps) who think that they are perfectly open-minded and are being perfectly honest with themselves, who are anything but?
“Reality is value free, but certainly not science.”
Really? Pure science is how we determine how reality works, is it not? And if reality is value free, then should not the procedure we use to understand reality be value free as well? Applied science may use pure science to make things or achieve outcomes that we value, but pure science does not. Pure science has no goal other than to discover how reality works.
I said: “Reality is value free, but certainly not science.”
This doesn’t follow as values are certainly part of reality.
I should have said, “While that which science seeks to study might be value free, certainly science isn’t.”
matt at anarchyjapan.com wrote:
“While that which science seeks to study might be value free, certainly science isn’t.”
OK, I’ll bite: What values does science have?
It values not being anthropomorphized.
“What values does science have?”
I would say science is just a word, and we can choose to define it as we wish (though we are burdened by the historical precedents.) That is it’s not “what values does science have?” but “what values *should* science have?”
I would recommend I.C. Jarvie’s paper on this. I don’t fully agree with everything he says. In fact, I’m not at all sure what Popper would have said about Jarvie’s concept of a republic of science. (To the extent it might hint at socialism, I certainly don’t like the sound of that.) Nevertheless, Jarvie’s paper would be a good start as far as answering your question. Here is the link:
http://fs1.law.keio.ac.jp/~popper//v7n1jarvie.html
@matt at anarchyjapan.com:
I just scanned the paper briefly, and could find nothing in it about values in the ethical or political sense of the word. Yes, Popper is normative in the sense that he presented a methodology that he believed “should” be followed by scientists. But that’s not what I was talking about when I said “science is value free”. I simply meant that science, properly conceived, has no ethical or political agenda; it doesn’t want anything, other than to discover the truth about how reality works. You could say that science is not really that pure, and the science is really just “what scientists do”. But then you would be treading dangerously close to Kuhnian grounds, wouldn’t you?
@Russ
“I disagree. Kuhn’s theory is basically a theory of the *sociology* of science; it describes how scientists do their work, and takes into account how scientists (like everybody else) tend to get set in their ways as they get older. Popper’s theory is a theory of the *philosophy* of science; it explains how scientists should do their job. So I think you’re comparing apples and oranges.”
It´s always tempting to place thinkers on either side of Hume´s divide when speaking of the Philosophy (ought) and the Science (is) of Science. In the case at hand (Popper-Kuhn), Popper spoke of a progressive, linear and continual accumulation of facts which is a descriptive statement. Kuhn speaks of “normal” and “revolutionary” science…aren´t these prescriptive terms? Should the paradigms not meet certain conditions to be treated as such? He also speaks of “uncertainty” in paradigm shifts for neccesarily ascertaining “truths”. Does the term “uncertainty” mean lack of knowledge in a Hayekian sense, or is it that Kuhn refers to a specific kind of shift that should be met in order to insure ascertaining truths? Is he speaking of the capacity met by past or present paradigms
(are or were) or what all paradigms should be? Like many analytical discussions, they contain both descriptive and prescriptive elements.
To luisdiego22002 …
luisdiego22002 said: “Popper spoke of a progressive, linear and continual accumulation of facts which is a descriptive statement.”
For the record, I think this is a fairly serious mischaracterization of Popper. He heavily criticized the idea that science was an accumulation of facts.
Google _Conjectures and Refutations_. Go to the Google book version and start reading on page 61 where the new section begins. You should be able to see that what you’ve stated above is just not correct. In fact, Popper and Kuhn both view a change from one theory to a competing theory as a kind of paradigm shift. The difference being Popper doesn’t differentiate between “revolutionary” theories and “ordinary” theories. Popper found that idea rather incredulous.
Also, I can’t imagine Popper seeing scientific progress as being linear in some sense, that’d be historicism which he heavily criticized in his book _The Poverty of Historicism_.
There is this idea out there that Popper was a positivist, and it runs so deep, it’s difficult to stamp out. But it has no bearing in truth.
To Russ …
Russ said: “I just scanned the paper briefly, and could find nothing in it about values in the ethical or political sense of the word.”
You mean all those *should* statements don’t represent values of any sort. That’s perplexing to me.
Popper stated in _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_”Thus I freely admit that in arriving at my proposals I have been guided, in the last analysis, by value judgments and predilections. But I hope that my proposals may be acceptable to those who value not only logical rigour but also freedom from dogmatism; who seek practical applicability, but are even more attracted by the adventure of science, and by discoveries which again and again confront us with new and unexpected questions, challenging us to try out new and hitherto undreamed-of answers. The fact that value judgments influence my proposals does not mean that I am making the mistake of which I have accused the positivists—
that of trying to kill metaphysics by calling it names.I do not even go so far as to assert that metaphysics has no value for empirical science. For it cannot be denied that along with metaphysical ideas which have obstructed the advance of science there have been others—such as speculative atomism—which have aided it. And looking at the matter from the psychological angle, I am inclined to think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind, and sometimes even quite hazy; a faith which is completely unwarranted from the point of view of science, and which, to that extent, is ‘metaphysical’.” [Chapter 1, section 4, towards the end.]
I think Popper more and more refined the above ideas throughout his life, though if you read _The Open Society and Its Enemies_, he develops them there as well, in chapter 24.
Russ said: “But that’s not what I was talking about when I said “science is value free”. I simply meant that science, properly conceived, has no ethical or political agenda; it doesn’t want anything, other than to discover the truth about how reality works.”
You don’t regard truth as a value? This is also perplexing to me. We judge things to be true or not true. This judgement is a human act. It’s human action. Likewise saying we should value the truth, is a statement of values.
One thing I want to point out again is that for Popper and Kuhn, theories are a way of looking. This implies a preference for one way of viewing over another when we subscribe to one theory or another. If one isn’t careful this can lead us down a relativistic path. This is what happens with Kuhn. It’s less about truth, and more about revolutions. It’s silly really.
For Popper, he believed humans have the capacity to sort through theories, criticize them, test them, and in this way get closer to the truth. Whether it’s a scientist coming up with a new theory for gravity, or a shopkeeper adjusting his prices after he realizes his products won’t sell at the current price, for Popper these are both paradigm shifts. Again, Kuhn’s ideas most accurately describe societies where there are authorities who can’t be refuted without facing unfortunate consequences. (I think this is true of academia; it’s even true of many police organizations; it’s true in the military; any type of closed society where allegiance is important will resist evidence that counterclaims core beliefs at least until they just can’t any longer. As softer science play a larger role in human conduct, these are where you’ll see the biggest resistance. See Thomas Szasz’s Epilogue to _Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol_)
Russ, again, you said, “science is value free.” My response to this is sort of like … whatever … humans surely aren’t. At least one thing Popper is attempting to do in _the Logic of Scientific Discovery_ is to figure out what are the rules of science that help us overcome our own prejudices. Not in a subjective sense, (“be objective”), but in an institutional sense, (“make sure dissenters can voice their dissent.” “make your theories clear to others, so its easier to refute them” and so on. Though I don’t agree with everything Jarvie says, he does a good idea of bringing these rules to the forefront.)
I see the free market the same way. It works not because people are pure and rational, but because its institutions tend to push us in the right direction.
@Russ “Popper spoke of a progressive, linear and continual accumulation of facts which is a descriptive statement.”
For the record, I think this is a fairly serious mischaracterization of Popper. He heavily criticized the idea that science was an accumulation of facts.
There’s no doubt that Popper was not a positvist or a determinist in any stretch of the imagination. Although, he seemed to fall into contradictions, he was a critical rationalist. In rereading my post, I think the use of the term “linear” is probably the one that most leads to believe that I think otherwise. For this, I apologize. This was not my intention. What I meant to express, is that Popper’s thinking does have descriptive-normative elements that add a certain structure to what science is and should be. He definitely does not see science in the anarchic way that Paul Feyerebend sees it. Let’s take the book you cite, Conjectures and Refutations (or, Hypothesis and Criticisms, if you will. The subtitle of this book is “The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”. He states: “All Knowledge is Conjectural.”. Isn`t this a stolen concept fallacy (like saying “Freedom is slavery”)? At any rate if all knowledge is conjectural, what do you call staements that precede hypotheticals, and what do these hypotheticals become when someone bases new hypotheticals on top of these (infinite regression and progression)? He speaks of Growth, but what is Growth? It`s a process of increasing a caracteristic or set of them through time (dimensions like height or weight, for example). But, you can`t increase (accumulate) knowledge if it doesn`t exist. You can only increase conjectures (which aren`t objective, they`re opinions or beliefs). Not only facts concerning of what you`re studying cease to be such, what about the definition of science or it`s methodology in and of itself? Wouldn`t they also be merely normative, merely conjectural. No episteme could ever exist. But, if preceding statements are knowledge (facts) that are intent in producing more facts, then knowledge does “grow” through time in an statistical fashion (probabilistically) in a Hayekian Kosmos, a spontaneous order? (He dedicated C&R, to Hayek, by the way.) This is why I feel that even though he does seem to contradict himself, Popper`s statements about science necessarily are more “thick” than “thin”. As far as “continual”, Popper does not speak of retrogression in Knowledge, as far as I recall.
In response to luisdiego22002,
I think you make a lot of interesting comments, I’m rusty here, but I’ll try a response, by tomorrow morning I might regret some of what I write here:
“Although, he seemed to fall into contradictions, he was a critical rationalist.”
You are making this claim by substituting *your* assumptions for *his* regarding certain concepts. That is the contradictions exist for you, based on certain presumptions you have. But those presumptions might not necessarily be right, nor do I think they existed for Popper who held different presumptions.
Popper’s ideas arose in the context of arguing with a bunch of positivists over the role of evidence in an argument. So initially he was focused very heavily on how we should treat empirical evidence. I think to a certain degree he had larger ideas than this, but in the narrow context he was dealing with, these initially were not readily apparent.
One important point I take away from Popper is that we are responsible for the truth. We can’t foist that responsibility off on any type of authority. If you express an idea or a value, then you can either assign truth or falsity to that idea. Once you make that decision, you are responsible for it. (A theory of epistemic justification is an attempt to absolve one of that responsibility and put that responsibility onto the theory.)
For Popper any type of argument that attempts to provide authority for the truth is question begging. And I would challenge you to provide an argument that justifies true (or infallible) knowledge that isn’t question begging.
luisdiego22002: “At any rate if all knowledge is conjectural, what do you call staements that precede hypotheticals, and what do these hypotheticals become when someone bases new hypotheticals on top of these (infinite regression and progression)?”
What types of statements are you referring to. I think the main issue is subjectivity. Popper felt that ideas have at least some existence outside of any person’s mind, at least to the extent that even a false idea has certain implications regardless of what we say or do about it.
I tend to think that to the degree you feel certain about something, it probably doesn’t refer to any empirical phenomena. For example, you probably *feel* 1+1=2 is fairly certain. However, once you begin to apply this to real phenomena, it’s not nearly so simple. I mean life certainly doesn’t work that way (1 rabbit +1 rabbit=2 rabbits? Maybe 3? …). It might sound like I’m being facetious, I’m not. Moreover, logicians make errors. Mathematicians make errors. So even for them *feeling* certain is not enough to be *sure* that some idea is true or not.
I don’t have any interest in putting this in a religious context, but certainly one could. You know, man’s fallibility versus God’s infallibility. Man have faith in truth (God). (I do *not* have any strong feelings about this either way, but mention this as some do. I see Popper’s ideas compatible with religious faith *and* atheism. It doesn’t provide guidance in some *ultimate* sense.) You might want to check this out:
http://www.unav.es/cryf/theethicalrootsofkarlpopper.html
As far as the contradiction in “conjectural knowledge”, why is this any more strange than the fairly ubiquitous expression, “false knowledge”.
As far as growth of knowledge, first let’s address truth, I think Popper felt we get nearer to the truth. I think it might be Lawrence Boland who first proposed the following, we might look at it like health. Truth, like health, is something we’ve got to continuously be working at, and when we’re working at it, we get a little better at it, but when we stop, we begin to lose it. It take continuos exercise.
Again, I’m rusty here, but truth is judgement coming from us. Not in the sense that it’s relative, but in the sense that we’re responsible for it, in that sense alone, it’s subjective. It’s individual. We can share knowledge, but we each must decide about the truth. It’s related to us as an individual. It’s a value.
Knowledge does seem to exist independent of us in at least some sense. Logical implication holds no matter what we say or do about it, even for a false theory. Popper tried really hard to respond to these issues in _Objective Knowledge_. You might want to look at what he said there. He suggest there that knowledge might grow organically (in a metaphorical sense I think). I can’t give an adequate summary without reviewing what he wrote, but it’s worth checking out.
Reading all this, one might ask, how is it that an individual assigns truth. We can point to useful things we can do, like to think criticality, to listen to the other people, but in a deeper sense, how do we determine truth. I just don’t see an answer here. But just because I don’t see an answer, doesn’t mean I don’t value the truth.
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