John Wilkins wrote:

> 
>>Haven't read Witt's 'On Certainty', but I think its widely understood
>>that the real blow to certainty was the demise of Newtonain mechanics.
>>Science is rarely influenced by developments in philosophy, I am told.
> 
> 
> Then you are told wrong. Locke, Hume, Mill, Whewell, and the positivists
> including Mach, Pearson, and of course people like Russell and Popper
> all had an impact on the ways science was done. Einstein in particular
> was influenced strongly by various philosophers, at least in the way he
> approached the topic. What caused the demise of certainty was - I
> believe - Hume's arguments against pyrrhonian skepticism, well before
> Newtonian mechanics hit the edge of uncertainty :-)
> 

Einstein's favorite was Spinoza, but I doubt it had much to do with his
science.

He credited Mach with an influence, but that was only in his parsimony
with regard to abandoning the notion of an aether and assumptions
about simultaneity.  Remember, most of the
thinking that led to relativity was based on thought expiments that
can't be conducted, not even in principle.  That's hardly Machian, at
least not according to anything I know about him.  There's also
Einsteins denunciation of positivism, Russell's variety any way, in
what was supposed to be a tribute to Prof. Russel in which he referred
to it as "the opposite extreme to that earlier philosophizing in the
clouds".  When called on the carpet on some of this, the dialogue
went something along the lines of:

    Questioner: What is your opinion of/Machean approaches to science?
    Einstein:  I think its utter nonsense.
    Questioner: But I thought you employed such notions in the development
                of relativity.
    Einstein:  Yes, I know.  But its nonsense all the same.

>>In philosophy, I suspect Hansen's assault on "the myth of the
given"
>>has probably have more impact on philsopher's of science, if we
>>are talking about philosophical influences.
> 
> 
> The myth of the given was attacked by Wilfred Sellars. N. R. Hanson was
> the "theory-dependence of observation", along with Popper shortly
> afterwards.

Sorry.  Hansen's the guy I had in mind.  But not as an influence
on scientists themselves.  I doubt that many of them actually
have a philosophy
of science, to be perfectly honest, other than what others will
let them get away with.  Again, don't confuse this with
the methodology of those who work in technology, where
Humean constant conjunctions do indeed become a much
more prominent component (e.g., the behavior of O rings
below 32 degree F), and testing and retesting is pretty much
what its all about.  But their objective is PREDICTION AND
CONTROL.  This is not the aim of science.  The aim of
science is UNDERSTANDING, and sometimes that requires tests
and sometimes it just requires a bit of common sense, the
ability to "see" (e.g., chemical beauty), as much as that
might make you uncomfortable.

> 
> Don't recall Perot from philosophy of science 101...
> 

My feeble attempt at humour.  I meant Ross Perot.  His little
remark about "thinking outside the box" sums up my own view
on the nature of reasoning admirably well, in that
its not a matter of following rules (e.g., logic, rules, principles,
methods, etc.), but a matter of COGNIZING them, and with it, the
OPTION of following the rule OR NOT when and if its deemed "rational".
This would be in line with Hume's contention that "all forms of reasoning
are nothing but comparing" and with it, the impliciation that reasoning
(ampliative inference) is actually ANAlogical in nature.  This also
applies to the scientific method, which is not stagnant, but a constantly
evolving approach to maximizing "true" belief.  Bridgman, the father of
operationalism who was appalled at the myuse of his technique by the
soft sciences and philosophers of science, sums it up nicely:

     "The scientific method, to the extent there is any such thing,
      is simply doing one's damnedest with one's mind, no holds
      barred".

> There is a deep undercutting of the positivist approach in Popper's
> attack on verification. Not least is the fact that he fails to reject
> metaphysics even as an element in science, which is what really
> *defines* positivism. When he characterised Darwinism as a "metaphysical
> research programme" in his _Unended quest_, that was not a claim it was
> unscientific, for example. For a positivist it would have been, but for
> him it was a guiding set of ideas for research. of course he was wrong
> about that, but the point is that he did not behave like apositivist in
> any way. He is a positivist the way atheists are Christians.
> 

Perhaps.  But as I have said, several authors I have read haven seen
more similarity than difference.  I'm certain it would not be an
opinion shared by Popper himself, though.

>>The two examples I've cited were of two of the major discoveries of
>>our century, relativity and DNA.  Both seemed to be heavily driven
>>by aesthetic considerations.  I know that sounds crazy, but I'm not
>>making this stuff up:
>>

> 
> I'm not denying that, but all the aesthetic considerations are not
> ultimate justifications. 

Nor are tests.  Einstein scoffed at the notion that his theory might
be empirically falsified, with phrases along the lines, 'that would
be just too bad, because the theory is right'.  As I say, there is
an endless array of considerations.  Another way of saying this,
is that the scientific method is not something that is going to
show up on a computer any time soon.  For example, how do you
test for the capacity to discern chemical beauty?(Watson's
remark).

Perhaps where we are disagreeing lies in the matter of the distinction
between the logic of discovery and the logic of convincing others.
But you are coming perilously close to arguing for an algorithmic
view of science that I and an awful lot of guys who have written
moutains of books on the matter find a tad bit naive.

> They are derivative, heuristic rules of thumb.
> If you have a clean and coherent theory to assess some hypothesis
> against, then you can say something is elegant. But elegance is
> insufficient to do more than guide you in your choices, and even then
> may not be enough. Sometimes, ugly theories are the best.
> 

Agreed.  There is no one single approach.  And sometimes tests turn
out to give misleading indications, and parsimony is actually the
more reliable indicator.  There is no algorithm for this stuff,
because human reasoning itself is nonalgorithmic.

>>
>>Yes.  There are many considerations, and they occur in a dazzling
>>array of hierarchies and machinations.  
> 
> Can't dispute you on that. There is no Scientific Method. But there are
> scientific methods, a whole family of them, and they resemble each other
> like a family does. Some of them are even illegitimate...
> 

Hey.  I thought that was my side of the argument.  :)

> 
> No. Kuhn was not that sociological. He always maintained that there was
> a core of prgessive knowledge to science. This goes by the general label
> of "sociology of knowledge", and names like Bloor and Irigay pop up.
> It's not my field.
> 

Got me on these guys.  But Kuhn is often thought of as exploring the
sociology of science, as I'm sure you must be aware.
Toulmin too, come to think of it.

>>
>>What experiment did Dalton propose when he postulated atomic theory
>>to account for the law of multiple proportions?
>>
>>What "test" did Rutherford propose to confirm his hypothesis that
>>the alpha particle angles were caused by atomic nucleii?
>>
> 
> What reason do we have for thinking that what people did before the
> "technological revolution" of the post-War era is what scientists do
> now? Anyway, it matters not what people themselves propose as a test -
> it is what the discipline or speciality can be expected to propose.
> 

Eventually.  But that was not John's argument.  If John had his way
all science would come to a screeching halt, because scientists only
deal in certainty.  Certainly, you can't be agreeing with this sort
of nonsense.  Behaviorism was born out this crap, and in my opinion
is the main reason why psychology has remained a baskedt case.  \

>>On what page of 'Origin', or perhaps just the chapter, will I be able
>>to find Mr. Darwin proposing these tests?

> 
> Go to a web version (the first and sixth edition are at the Darwin
> online site) and search for "objections", "fatal to my
theory" and so
> forth. The discussion on the eye is a case in point, but also the
> discussion on eusocial insects.
> 

But these were not tests.  We are all aware of the objections to Mr.
Darwin's theory.  What we are talking about are conclusive tests
that must be proposed BEFORE A HYPOTHESIS CAN BE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED.
I think you may have missed this little point, John.

>>Remember, we are not talking about subsequent "tests",
but those proposed
>>by Darwin himself, given your and John's contention that one can not
>>possibly propose a theory without also proposing a means of testing it,
>>that such behavior would be "unscientific".
> 
> 
> Sorry, I don't think I suggested that.
> 

That's what Edser and I were discussing.  But your input has been of
great interest and of value, even if based on a slight misunderstanding
about the nature of the disagreement.

>>
>>I could use a bit of elaboration on this, old bean.   :)  Are we talking
>>Sewall Wright?
>>
> 
> Yes, we are.
> 

Call that an elaboration?  Do you think Hamilton and Smith (ESS) are just
wasting our time by developing formal models of natural selection based
on the assumption that reproductive fitness is pretty much what its
all about?  Are they being overly selectionist, in your opinion?

BTW, I have to be careful here, because I am very much opposed to the
view that everything we find in nature must necessarily be adaptive.
But that's a long way from supposing that the maximizing of reproductive
fitness is not what lies at the heart of the theory of natural selection,
as I read you as maintaining.


PR
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