Final Exam What Is Good Science

Europe and global politics since WW II
Question 2: Thomas Kuhn writes that good science is normal science that takes place within a
paradigm. Karl Popper argues that good science is a process of conjecture and refutation/falsification.
Describe the differences between these two iterations of what good science is and provide an argument in
favour of either Popper or Kuhn.
Name
Julie de Galard
Student ID #
6092549
E-mail address
Juliede.galard@gmail.com
Course code
EUS1007
Group number
19
Supervisor/tutor
Cichon, MK (Magdalena)
Assignment name
Final Exam
Assignment #
Attempt
REGULAR
Academic year
20142015
Date
30/01/2015
Words
1266
Filename
20142015- EUS1007-00-REGULAR-6092549.pdf
Science comes from the Latin scientia meaning theoretical knowledge. This
raises the following problem: what is a theoretical knowledge? It comes from the
Latin theoria (speculation), and the Greek theoria which means: intellectual
contemplation (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001). So there is a clear link
between science, theoretical knowledge and speculation; however, speculation is
to discover knowledge from reflection and without experience. That led to a
difficulty: some science such as biology need to be undertaken by experiences
directly over the object of study. Thus in biology I have to use the experience and
therefore to adopt an empirical approach. Nevertheless, in physical I can only use
the rational approach by rational hypothesis or some reliable knowledge.
What criteria knowledge may be declared as reliable? How to build a knowledge
which appears as valid for everyone? Is the truth scientifically accessible? Is truth
the criterion for determining good science?
At the end the twentieth century, two philosophers: Karl Popper (1902, 1994) and
Thomas S. Kuhn (1922, 1996) ask themselves of what is good science? What can
determine a good science and what is not? What is a good scientific claim? From
this two authors, Ill try to distinguish their theories and evaluate which of them
seem to give the more relevant answer to the following question: what is a good
science?
Karl Popper (1902, 1994), as an empiric philosopher that experience and

knowledge are the basics of science approach. Moreover, even if, he is an empiric
scholar he was strongly against the logical positivists those who defined good
scientific theory when it refers to experience and logic. Against this way of
thinking, in conjecture and refutation he argues that a thesis is scientific if it
follows this two conditions. On one hand, the enunciated (or the statement) must
be rational. In another hand the experiences goal is not to confirm or verify a
theory but in contrary to falsify it.
Popper is against what he calls the verificationism, that means the belief in
which the experiences purpose is to verify he theory, in other words theories
may be confirmed by an experience. In opposition to the naive way of thinking,
Popper suggests the following reasoning: if an experiment invalid my hypothesis,
then I am sure that it was false. Nevertheless, if an experience is conform to the
hypothesiss predictions, I just can conclude that my theory is not refuted yet. In
that way, Popper highlights that the experience is only to invalidate the theory:
when I imagine an experimental protocol, I must not seek to immunize my theory
or to confirm it but I have to imagine all experimental possible cases that could
help invalidate it.
Therein, popper explains that a theory is scientific only if it pursues a lot of tests
for invalid it. We can notice that a scientific theory does not necessarily be true.
Indeed, if an enunciated is rational and validate by an experience, nothing can
prove that another experiment will not refute this previous theory. Therefore,
science works by hypothesis then refutations; and an experiment not refuted is
always in reprieve before a future refutation.
Nevertheless, we can object something to Popper. When a hypothesis is falsified

by an experiment, what is really refuted? Is it a theory or the general framework
in which the theory makes sense?
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) introduced in his book the structure of scientific
revolutions (1962) the notion of normal science that means a science that has
been agreed by all scientists and belongs to its specific paradigm. Scientists by
agreeing on this normal science they acknowledge the standards and the rules of
this science (Loewer, 2012). For Kuhn, a paradigm () means something like a
way of seeing the world and interacting with it (Godfrey-Smith, 2003 p.76).
Indeed, a paradigm refers to how a fact must be interpreted, that is, it must be
interpreted according to the dominant worldview. Even if a theory is wrong, the
important thing is to understand the fact that a paradigm dictates the sense of
the interpretation we give to experiences. In other words, experiences are
inevitably interpreted and this interpretation is related to a paradigm where lies
our vision of the world.
Consider an example to illustrate this theory: it has long sought to understand
why some bodies emit heat. In the Aristotelian paradigm, any change of a body is
to be explained by an internal property of the body; scholars have therefore
thought that heat was an internal fluid to all bodies called phlogistic (or
phlogiston) (S. Kuhn, 1962, p.53). Moreover, experiments showed that a body put
into combustion lost some mass. We interpreted this loose of mass from the
paradigm, so we thought that it was the proof that the fluid escaping, and so that
when the body gave out heat, it also emitted a fluid, the phlogistic which
generated the loss of the body mass. Nonetheless, we discovered that some
bodies increase their mass during combustion. This discover, falsified the
previous theory and it was Lavoisier who brought the knockout by showing that
there was no fluid and that combustion was caused by an interaction with
oxygen. That theory was the keystone for a reformulation of chemistry so vast
that it is usually called the chemical revolution (S. Kuhn, 1962, p.56). We can
learn from this example that the experiment refuted more than the theory but
the paradigm itself. The experiment shows that the paradigm wherein the bodys
changing is due to the properties of the body is false. To conclude, it is not the
theory which is refuted but the paradigm which gives the theorys meaning.
Moreover, we can also observe that the some experiment introduced crisis and
the scientific evolution is not linear, it is a process where some crisis or new
discoveries change our vision of the world that we were convinced to be true, and
create indefinitely new paradigms.
Kuhn and Popper, are both trying to evaluate what is good science. Even if there
are in some points opposed according to their definition of a good science. For
Popper, a good science accept what he calls the falsification and for Kuhn a
good science is evaluated through a paradigm. Nevertheless, they are quite
similar in few points. Indeed, both are agree to say that even if the major aim of
science is to find the truth, we can never find it, but we tend to it. We are
humans, so we are finished and we just can only get closer to the truth but never
reach. In that case, there are no perfect science, and these two scholars are
fighting against the certainty which erroneously believing that we can achieve a
perfect knowledge. By combining Popper and Kuhn we can conclude that a good
science is only a discipline which accept its progress due to the evolution of
knowledge, which try to get closer to the truth by falsification. Indeed, if no
experiments refute a theory, the latter seems to be true in its paradigm. It is
impossible to affirm that a theory is true but it is possible to prove that it is false.
Nevertheless, it is extremely unpleasant to live in a world where you know that all
knowledge you have is potentially or definitely wrong. Thus, we need the concept
of paradigm which accept a theory in function of the knowledge acquired in this
paradigm. For that, I am closer to Kuhn because he takes an account that
sciences meaning only related of his time even if a theory will be refuted, it is
just a change of context.
References:
-
Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2003). Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the

Philosophy of Science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
Kuhn, Thomas. (1962).The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Barry, Loewer (2012). Philosophy in 30sec. HURTUBISE
Harper, D. (2001, January 1). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved
January 28, 2015, from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?
term=theory

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Europe and global politics since WW II

Karl Popper (1902, 1994), as an empiric philosopher that experience and

Nevertheless, we can object something to Popper. When a hypothesis is falsified

Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2003). Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the

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