Philosophical Studies: Criticisms, Helio-centric Model, Science And Ideology

What is the criticism of sociobiology that Ridley is responding to in this passage?

What kind of choice does Longino think we have here and what are its implications for the idea of a value-free science?

According to Kitcher, in what way do the political consequences influence 'what counts as sufficient evidence'?

What is the significance of Maupertuis’ genetic studies for preformationism?

What are the differences between anomalous experiences and falsifying instances?

What is the criticism of sociobiology that Ridley is responding to in this passage?

This is a TIMED ONLINE EXAM.

Each topic consists of three questions. Answer any SIX (6) of the following TWELVE questions. Each question worth an equal number of marks. You can refer to relevant materials, or notes.

For your answer, you are expected to:

• say where the quote comes from (the actual text) eg. “Osiander’s Foreword”;
• explain what the quote says or means, in your own words;
• answer the question, philosophically, with analytical commentary and reflection.

You are expected to write 200-250 words for each question, and please avoid using dot points.

1. In his Preface Copernicus makes the following two statements:

Their experience was like someone taking from various places hands, feet, a head, and other pieces, very well depicted, it may be, but not for the representation of a single person; since these fragments would not belong to one another at all, a monster rather than a man would be put together from them.

By long and intense study I finally found that if the motions of the other planets are correlated with the orbiting of the earth, and are computed for the revolution of each planet, not only do their phenomena follow therefrom but also the order and size of all the planets and spheres, and heaven itself is so linked together that in no portion of it can anything be shifted without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole.

The Copernicus, while discussing about the limitation of astronomers in his days, hands, feet, a head, and other pieces has delivered these statements. The meaning of these two statements are similar. Copernicus tried to show that the interpretation of the natural phenomenon of the universe and its various components should be explained by a singular theory or perception. Different theories for different phenomenon of the universe would make only a monster like conceptualisation, which will be less feasible and attainable. In the second statement, Copernicus addressed that the theoretical assumption should be shifted towards a positive direction without disrupting the remaining parts of the concepts for the natural phenomenon of the universe. He claimed with adequate support that his theoretical observation about planetary motion and the phenomenon of solar system does not disrupt other natural phenomenon. On the other hand, the proposed natural mechanism or identified theory is capable to explain the other phenomenon of solar system and other physical properties of universe.

The core obligation of these two statements is theoretical inconsistency. It does not mean that the theory must be homogeneous. However, the collective knowledge and formulated perception must have consistent flow of rationality. The core foundation of reasoning and logical explanation could be only preserved through developing a compatible theory, which can be presented as the foundation of any possible observed and even observed experience. Besides, not for the positivist philosophical approach, the integrated theory can also be satisfied within an interpretivist philosophical approach

What kind of choice does Longino think we have here and what are its implications for the idea of a value-free science?

In the following passage from Galileo’s Dialogue he considers an objection to the heliocentric model of the solar system:

For if it were true that the distances of Mars from the earth varied as much from minimum to maximum as twice the distance from the earth to the sun, then when it is closest to us its disc would have to look sixty times as large as when it is most distant. Yet no such difference is seen.

Galileo replied that the distance between earth and mars should not be imagined as a two dimensional space, where the freedom of motion is limited to only single planer space like a table top. On the contrary, the planetary motion is or the disk created by this motion can exists in different plane. The disk created by earth’s orbit is tilted from the disk created by the orbit of Mars. According to Galileo, the perception of changes in size is the result of relative distance of the two planets namely earth and Mars.

In his reply, Galileo was trying to explain the simple modification over the heliocentric model theorised by the Copernicus. From philosophical perspective it ca be seen that the perception or theorem of explaining some phenomenon should be evolved as per the new observation or discoveries. However, the core components or the core philosophy of any theory should not be changed. It is not the responsibility of person who are proposing a new feasible theories. Making the core concept feasible for any further discoveries, is the responsibility of the initial proposer of any new theory.    

Galileo argues:

Nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called into question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words.

According to this passage, what does Galileo say one should do when a biblical passage seems to conflict with sense-experience?

TOPIC 2: Philosophical Studies (Popper: What makes a theory scientific; and Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions)

4. Popper explains what logical analysis is not used for:

The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it. The question how it happens that a new idea occurs to a man – whether it is a musical theme, a dramatic conflict, or a scientific theory – may be of great interest to empirical psychology; but it is irrelevant to the logical analysis of scientific knowledge.

According to Kitcher, in what way do the political consequences influence 'what counts as sufficient evidence'?

So what, according to Popper, is logical analysis used for?

5. Comparing his concept of 'anomalous experiences' to Popper’s falsification instances, Kuhn says:

Nevertheless, anomalous experiences may not be identified with falsifying ones.

During discussion of the concept of ‘anomalous experiences’ T.S. Kuhn said, that the idea for scientific explanation may or may not be emerged from the tendency of falsifying an instance. However, he clearly stated that at the letter stage of proving a discovery or justifying and theory the concept of falsification could be useful.

6. One of Kuhn’s most famous analogies is the following:

Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.

According to Kuhn, what are two similarities between scientific and political revolution

7. Harvey concludes from a famous experiment:

I therefore regard it as demonstrated that after fertile intercourse among viviparous...animals, there are no remains in the uterus either of the semen of the male or female emitted in the act, nothing produced by any mixture of these two fluids, as medical writers maintain, nothing of the menstrual blood present as ‘matter’ in the way Aristotle will have it; in a word, that there is not necessarily even a trace of the conception to be seen immediately after a fruitful union of the sexes.

Describe the experiment which Harvey performed which led him to these conclusions.

8. Maupertuis wrote in a letter:

Jacob Ruhe, surgeon of Berlin, is one of these types. Born with six digits on each hand and each foot, he inherited this peculiarity from his mother Elisabeth Ruhen, who inherited it from her mother Elisabeth Horstmann, of Rostock. Elisabeth Ruhen transmitted it to four children of eight she had by Jean Christian Ruhe, who had nothing extraordinary about his feet or hands. Jacob Ruhe, one of these six-digited children, espoused, at Dantzig in 1733, Sophie Louise de Thüngen, who had no extraordinary trait: he had by her six children; two boys were six-digited. One of them, Jacob Ernest, had six digits on the left foot and five on the right: he had on the right hand a sixth finger, which was amputated; on the left he had in the place of the sixth digit only a stump.

Preformationism is a concept that proposed a new perspective of embryonic development, which is built on a particular theory of pre-existence of formative information. This idea states that the development of any organism from the embryonic phase depends on the initial genetic information. As per this theory, the formation and physical growth during embryonic and post-embryonic stage inherits its original shape during the growth. Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis developed a mathematical equation to describe the development of any physical form from its initial stage to final stability. In genetic studies the Maupertuis equation helps to define and even evaluate the concept of preformationism of any organism.

9. Bonnet argues:

The excessive growth which the ears of the horse acquire by the influence of the liquor of the ass, indicates that this liquor contains more molecules, appropriated to the unfolding of the ears, than that of the horse, or that the molecules of the first are more active than those of the second.

What theory is Bonnet defending by this argument, and what general observation is he attempting to explain

TOPIC 4: Sociobiology – Science and Ideology

10. One of Kitcher’s most important claims is the following:

Everybody ought to agree that, given sufficient evidence for some hypothesis about humans, we should accept that hypothesis whatever its political implications. But the question of what counts as sufficient evidence is not independent of the political consequences.

According to Philip Kitcher, the scientific evidences for proving any hypothesis or falsifying any concept have to pass through the acceptance of the political consequences. Through this argument he is questioning the entire perception of validate any particular theory or hypothesis. According to Kitcher’s perspective, the acceptance or validation of any evidence should be independent from any external political consequence. The political consequence can restrict the freedom of observer to accept the evidences, on which the hypothesis has to be proven. This dilemma often courses poor recognition of some significant theories in both scientific and sociological world of research.    

11. Longino says:

If we recognize, however, that knowledge is shaped by the assumptions, values, and interests of a culture and that, within limits, one choose one’s culture, then it’s clear that as scientists/theorists we have a choice.

In this argument Longino is saying about the choice evidence. The choice of evidences, which can validate any hypothesis and nullify any alternative theory, sometimes built on the social and the personal perception on the individual, who is conducting the research. In other words the Longino is saying that the consideration should be more independent and free from any personal values.

12. Ridley defends his approach to sociobiology:

People strive for something, certainly, but it is usually money, power, security or happiness. The fact that they do not translate these into babies is raised as evidence against the whole evolutionary approach to human affairs. But the claim of evolutionists is not that these measures of success are today the tickets to reproductive success, but that they once were.