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In "Cargo Cult Science" Feynman showed a lot of insight into the current replication crisis decades before it blew up -- at least, that's how it looks to me as

In "Cargo Cult Science" Feynman showed a lot of insight into the current replication crisis decades before it blew up -- at least, that's how it looks to me as an outsider. Did any philosopher do better? (Ahead of time, again.) It wouldn't surprise me, and I'd like to check out their work, but from my own reading I can't think of anyone. By "do better" I mean in an equivalent few pages to advise a new graduate about how to discover things that are true, as a focus sometimes at odds with advancing their career, because that's what Feynman's graduation speech was about.

pmoriarty 10y ago
"Did any philosopher do better? ... By "do better" I mean in an equivalent few pages to advise a new graduate about how to discover things that are true" Philosophy of science is less about telling scientists how to behave than trying to understand what actually happens when scientists do what they do, what science accomplishes on a theoretical level, what the difference between science and non-science is, etc. It's less of "here's how to get to the truth" and more of "can science get at the truth at all?" or "to what degree can science get at the truth?" or (much like Feynman's essay) "what makes these particular actions or beliefs 'scientific'?" Karl Popper's criterion of "falsifiability"[1] was once a popular one, in regards to what makes something 'scientific'. But that's fallen out of fashion[2]: "Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. The gulf between Popper's way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology." And so the debate continues... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticisms
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. That doesn't really mean Popper is wrong.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    Let me ask you this, then: can the principle of falsifiability itself ever be falsified? If it can't then by its own measure, it's not "scientific". Further, if one scorns anything "unscientific" as valueless, then the principle of falsifiability must also be valueless.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >Let me ask you this, then: can the principle of falsifiability itself ever be falsified? In the relevant sense, yes. We switch out conceptual definitions when they fail to encompass the relevant empirical instances. If falsifiability turned out to allow, for example, theology to be considered a science, then we would have to throw out falsifiability. As it is, it's only a coarse-grained principle for demarcation, hence the arguments about string theory.
- mannykannot 10y ago
  >Philosophy of science is less about telling scientists how to behave than trying to understand what actually happens when scientists do what they do, what science accomplishes on a theoretical level, what the difference between science and non-science is, etc. I think that may have been Feynman's point. Whether, or to what extent, Popper's falsifiability criterion is a good description of science is not a problem for scientists.
- abecedarius 10y ago
  If a philosopher of science studied contemporary scientists and judged "these practices common to this field tend to produce more accurate far-reaching knowledge of the world, compared to these other practices accepted in this other field", and a few decades later we could judge that the philosopher was basically right, then I'd want more to read their work. They of course may have broader concerns.

pmoriarty 10y ago

"Did any philosopher do better? ... By "do better" I mean in an equivalent few pages to advise a new graduate about how to discover things that are true" Philosophy of science is less about telling scientists how to behave than trying to understand what actually happens when scientists do what they do, what science accomplishes on a theoretical level, what the difference between science and non-science is, etc. It's less of "here's how to get to the truth" and more of "can science get at the truth at all?" or "to what degree can science get at the truth?" or (much like Feynman's essay) "what makes these particular actions or beliefs 'scientific'?" Karl Popper's criterion of "falsifiability"[1] was once a popular one, in regards to what makes something 'scientific'. But that's fallen out of fashion[2]: "Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. The gulf between Popper's way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology." And so the debate continues... [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticisms

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. That doesn't really mean Popper is wrong.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Let me ask you this, then: can the principle of falsifiability itself ever be falsified? If it can't then by its own measure, it's not "scientific". Further, if one scorns anything "unscientific" as valueless, then the principle of falsifiability must also be valueless.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >Let me ask you this, then: can the principle of falsifiability itself ever be falsified? In the relevant sense, yes. We switch out conceptual definitions when they fail to encompass the relevant empirical instances. If falsifiability turned out to allow, for example, theology to be considered a science, then we would have to throw out falsifiability. As it is, it's only a coarse-grained principle for demarcation, hence the arguments about string theory.
mannykannot 10y ago
>Philosophy of science is less about telling scientists how to behave than trying to understand what actually happens when scientists do what they do, what science accomplishes on a theoretical level, what the difference between science and non-science is, etc. I think that may have been Feynman's point. Whether, or to what extent, Popper's falsifiability criterion is a good description of science is not a problem for scientists.
abecedarius 10y ago
If a philosopher of science studied contemporary scientists and judged "these practices common to this field tend to produce more accurate far-reaching knowledge of the world, compared to these other practices accepted in this other field", and a few decades later we could judge that the philosopher was basically right, then I'd want more to read their work. They of course may have broader concerns.