The Truth

about
Science
Steve Torrance
School of Health and Social Sciences
s.torrance@mdx.ac.uk
stevet@sussex.ac.uk

www.mdx.ac.uk/www/psychology/torrance/
04/25/17 1
 AIMS OF TODAY
Reflection on the nature of 'science' in
'computing science'
Review some of the main recent philosophical
theories of science
Try to draw some morals for practice of
research

04/25/17 2
 REALITY CHECK
- SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT
WHAT YOURE DOING HERE ...
(Q 1) Why are you doing a doctorate in
computing science?
As opposed (e.g.) to computing technology? Or
computing Arts?
(Q 2) Why is the school you are in called
the 'School of Computing Science'?
(Q 3) What makes a subject scientific?
What distinguishes science from non-science or from
pseudo-science or from pre-science?

04/25/17 3
 MORE QUESTIONS
(Q 4) Can scientific approaches to Computing tell us
everything there is to know about computing?
Or are there aspects to understanding computing that lie outside the scope
of science?
(Q 5) How does computing science psychology relate to
natural or 'mathematical' sciences (such as biology, chemistry,
physics; maths, logic)?
To what extent is CS reducible to these other disciplines?
(Q 6) Can science provide objective, certain
knowledge, or only subjective opinion?
(In general? In the case of Comp Sci ?)

04/25/17 4
 MORE QUESTIONS...

(Q 7) Must every science be

mathematical (or statistical) to be scientific?
(Q 8) Are there forms of knowledge
outside science?
(E.g. religion, literature, social understanding, ethics?)
(Q 9) Does science automatically provide
a route to truth or objective knowledge?
Is science always rational?

04/25/17 5
Some Philosophical Concepts to
do with science...

Epistemology
- from episteme - knowledge

Ontology
- study of entities, what exists...

Methodology
- how science should/does proceed

04/25/17 6
 Epistemology
The theory of knowledge:
Is knowledge possible?
How do we go about getting knowledge?
Empirical observation?
Theoretical reflection?

Is Science the (only) route to knowledge?

How do we validate scientific principles or
laws?

04/25/17 7
 Ontology
The science of, or the study of being, existence,
reality,
Ontology refers to the claims or assumptions that
a particular approach to science makes about the
nature of reality, or about what things do or don't exist.
Do 'electrons' or 'market forces' or 'feelings' exist? What about
'software'?
Realism versus instrumentalism
Instrumentalism: the objects postulated by scientific theories are just
fictions used for predictive or explanatory purposes

04/25/17 8
 Methodology
Does science grow by accumulation of
observed examples?
(inductive approach)
Or does it proceed via formation of
hypotheses which are then subjected to
attempted refutation?
(falsificationist approach)
Or can it proceed only through a series of
paradigm shifts?
(Science as a sequence of revolutions)

04/25/17 9
 Epistemology:
A PRIORI Knowledge
A PRIORI knowledge is knowledge
gained prior to experience
example: d = ba + b
a c d
Other examples:
'No surface can be red and green all over';
'5 + 7 = 12';
'There are no bachelors who are married'

04/25/17 10
 A POSTERIORI (Empirical) Knowledge
(Example) Fitts' Law:
(a) movement time is a logarithmic function of distance when target size is
held constant, and
(b movement time is a logarithmic function of target size when distance is
held constant.

MT = a + b log2(2A/W)
where
MT = movement time
a, b = regression coefficients
A = distance of movement from start to target center
W = width of the target
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5724/g1/glance.html

04/25/17 11
 Deduction vs Induction
Aristotelian Syllogisms:
two premises, one conclusion
Valid in virtue of form
Example (mood of CELARENT):
No mystics are politicians No M is P
All scientists are mystics All S is M
No scientists are politicians No S is P

Deductive validity (in general):

If premises accepted, conclusion can't be denied without contradiction.
(If premises known, conclusion known a priori.)

04/25/17 12
INDUCTION: accumulation of knowledge
through observation.
Induction: a form of argument that starts with observed
similar examples, and concludes that unobserved
examples will be the same.

Classic example: WATER BOILS AT 100C

In sample S1 water was observed to boil at 100C
In sample S2 water was observed to boil at 100C

In sample SN water was observed to boil at 100C
(In no samples was water observed to boil other than at 100C)
So all samples of water boil at 100C
Nave view of induction: the more positive examples that are
observed, the more the inferred general conclusion is confirmed.

04/25/17 13
 Induction versus Deduction
Deduction: if premises (of a valid argument) are asserted,
conclusion can't be denied without self-contradiction;
Induction: conclusion can be denied without contradiction
Deduction: conclusion (if valid) never contains more
information than premises; always just draws out what is
explicit in premises;
Induction: conclusion always goes beyond information in premises
Deduction: arguments are valid in virtue of their logical form
Induction: arguments are not valid in virtue of logical form

Question: Is there a logic of induction which works in

parallel with deductive logic, and which underwrites empirical
science?

04/25/17 14
 Rationalism / Empiricism
Rationalism:
In 17th century a popular view of science was that all
scientific knowledge was in principle justifiable a priori
by deduction from first principles (known innately);
(even if experiment used in the process of discovery)
Empiricism:
the view that scientific laws couldn't be known a priori
- had to be derived from experience -
induction rather than deduction

04/25/17 15
 IS INDUCTION RATIONALLY
JUSTIFIED?
This question was asked in the 18th century by the philosopher
David Hume:
(1) How can we be sure that induction works?
(1) Nothing logically necessitates an inductive conclusion.
(1) E.g.: You cant validly infer from a large number of observed
cases where day has been followed by night that EVERY day
will be followed by night.
(Think of turkeys around Christmas time!)
(2) You could try to justify the principle in science by
saying: Induction has worked well for us so far, so it's
rational to expect it to work well in the future'.
But thats a CIRCULAR justification its using induction to justify its
own rationality!

04/25/17 16
 Conjecture and refutation:
Poppers critique of induction
Sir Karl Popper (1902 - 1994): Inductivist
approaches to science have got things the
wrong way round: science doesnt proceed
by accumulating evidence for general
hypotheses.
Rather, falsifiability is the characteristic of
sound science.
The rational scientific method is to propose a
hypothesis as a conjecture, and then try to
work out experimental ways to refute the
hypothesis.
04/25/17 17
 More on Popper
Scientists should thus seek strong empirical tests that
can disconfirm a given hypothesis.
If the hypothesis successfully evades very rigorous
attempts to refute it, then it has been shown to be
scientifically corroborated.
But a hypothesis cannot be conclusively proven it will
at best be a well-founded conjecture
Poppers method uses only logical deduction
inductive forms of inference are not required by science
indeed induction has no status as rational inquiry
Theories are discovered by trial and error (conjecture
and refutation) rather than through inductive
accumulation of evidence

04/25/17 18
 Popper's view of science
It's easy to obtain confirmations of theories - confirmations should
count only if they result from risky predictions - that is, 'if ,
unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected
an event which would have refuted the theory'
Every 'good' scientific theory is a 'prohibition' - the more a theory
forbids, the better
Every genuine test of an event is an attempt to falsify it; confirming
(or 'corroborating') evidence should count only if it is the result of a
serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory
Attempts to retain a theory in the face of confirmation by
introducing ad hoc auxiliary assumptions, may rescue the theory,
but only at the price of lowering its scientific status

04/25/17 19
Genuine science versus pseudoscience -
Popper's demarcation criterion
Popper was struck by the way adherents of Marxist and
Psychoanalytic theories saw everything as evidence of the truth of
those theories
For example they explained resistance to the 'truth' of the theory by
reference to the theory itself ('ideology' or 'unconscious repression')
No serious readiness to accept possibility of refutation, even in principle
So such theories considered pseudoscientific, rather like astrology
(despite incorporation of extensive systematic empirical studies in
each field )
'Critical' versus 'dogmatic' attitude
Critical attitude: 'attempt to make our theories suffer in our stead in
the struggle for survival'
Dogmatic attitude: protection of theory come what may

04/25/17 20
 Example of 'good' science:
Eddington's 1919 expedition
Einstein's theory of gravity entailed that light is attracted
by heavy bodies, like the sun
Led to the 'bold' prediction that light from distant stars
would be seen shifted away from the sun
Not normally confirmable; but in 1919 Eddington led an
expedition to Africa to take measurements during a
solar eclipse
High risk of falsification - but predictions were borne out
A paradigm example of theory-corroboration for Popper

04/25/17 21
 No amount of
experimentation can
ever prove me right;
a single experiment
can prove me
wrong.
Albert Einstein

04/25/17 22
 The card-selection task as an illustration of
Poppers method of falsification.
(Wason and Johnson-Laird)

E K 4 7

HYPOTHESIS:
All cards which have a vowel on one side, have an
even number on the other side.

Which cards are the minimum you need to turn over

to determine whether hypothesis is true?
04/25/17 23
 E K 4 7

Answer: To test the hypothesis

'Vowel Even',
you need to turn over just E and 7.

they are the cards which could potentially

refute the hypothesis.

04/25/17 24
 Questioning the Popperian
method: machines and chess
Many sceptics about Artificial Intelligence insist that
human minds work on very different principles from
those operating in computers
Such AI-sceptics would concede that computers can
sometimes obey some apparently intelligent tasks,
but this is possible only when those tasks are
relatively simple in nature
E.g. computers can apparently play chess well, but not
to a very high degree.
This suggests a hypothesis that could be subjected to
attempted refutation (as Popper recommended):
NO COMPUTER COULD BEAT A WORLD
CHAMPION CHESS PLAYER.

04/25/17 25
 THE DEEP BLUE EXPERIMENT.
In 1997, Gary Kasparov, was reigning World Grand
Master in Chess.
He played a 6 game match against Deep Blue, a very
complex machine built by IBM Research Labs.
Deep Blue won 3 games, Kasparov won 2, and they drew 1
so the machine won the match overall.
DID THIS CONVINCE THE AI-SCEPTICS ?
Should it have?
AI-sceptics weren't convinced:
they argued that the design of the machine was so different
from a human brain, that the test didnt count;
or that it was just an isolated example.

04/25/17 26
 PROBLEMS WITH FALSIFICATION

There are many other examples of favourite

hypotheses which continued to be held even after
apparently decisive refutation
In practice, scientists often hang on to theories in the face of
apparent empirical falsification
Is falsification is as straightforward a matter as Popper
suggested?
Popper was aware of criticisms like this - he said 'good'
scientific hypotheses would define clear conditions of
falsification
This has been challenged by many philosophers of science:
It's always possible to 'explain' apparent empirical
disconfirmations.

04/25/17 27
 Thomas Kuhns
Scientific Paradigms
Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) wrote The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions (1962; 2nd ed 1970).
Kuhn: Scientific investigation always proceeds
within a dominant paradigm (or disciplinary matrix)
shared by people working at the time.
A Paradigm = a framework for understanding the
world shared by a community of scientists
includes broad sets of theories, shared assumptions,
ways of working, sets of text-book problems and
solutions (exemplars).

04/25/17 28
 Normal science and
revolutionary science
Kuhn distinguished two major phases in scientific
progress.
(A) Normal science occurs when a paradigm
commands general consent of people working in it.
- Apparent anomalies are explained away by various ad
hoc methods.
(B) Scientific Revolutions occur when a paradigm
becomes strongly questioned by so many people that
a mass revolt occurs, and a new paradigm is
accepted.
- This is called a paradigm shift. It occurred (in modern
physics), when Relativity theory overthrew the dominant
paradigm of Newtonian mechanics.

04/25/17 29
 Paradigms and falsification
Kuhn: Established theories don't just get falsified by direct
reference to the empirical facts: one paradigm is only
supplanted by another paradigm.
'Once it has achieved the status of a paradigm, a scientific theory is
declared invalid only if an alternate candidate is available to take its
place. No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific
development at all resembles the methodological stereotype [as
defined by Popper] of falsification by direct comparison with nature'
'The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the
decision to accept another , and the judgment leading to that decision
involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and each
other.'

04/25/17 30
 Crises
Even in the face of quite deep anomalies an established
paradigm may continue to be supported for a long time:
there are always difficulties in the way a paradigm fits with
nature. But crises do occur.
There are no fixed reasons why a crisis may occur in a
period of normal science: it depends on a variety of factors:
accumulating empirical counter-instances;
problems with deep assumptions in the paradigm;
emergence of new inventions;
new practical or social conditions;
emergence of particular individuals who articulate the problems
more clearly, or who formulate a competing paradigm; etc.

04/25/17 31
 Revolutions
Scientific revolutions involve 'a growing sense that
an existing paradigm has ceased to function
adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to
which that paradigm itself had previously led the way'
The transition to a new paradigm has many
characteristics of a political revolution: (hence Kuhn's
notion of 'scientific revolutions')
There is the same kind of polarization of the
community into opposing camps supporting the old and
the new orders

04/25/17 32
 Incommensurability between
paradigms
The debate between paradigms can't be described
(exhaustively) in terms of shared rules of reasoning:
'Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that
paradigm's defence' - so there is an inevitable circularity to
justifying a paradigm
Each paradigm contains its own criteria of what counts as
rationally acceptable confirmation and refutation;
Paradigms dictate how the world is seen - so in a sense,
'after a revolution scientists are responding to a different
world'

04/25/17 33
 Scientific progress and truth:
Popper
For Popper science definitely proceeds along a path of
greater objective validity
Theories can never attain certainty (because there is
always in principle a possibility of falsifying a theoretical
law-like statement)
But theories will be corroborated as they continue to
survive in the face of failed attempts at falsification
So theories can asymptotically approach truth
[as a series of N-sided regular polygons progressively
approximate to a circle as N increases]

04/25/17 34
 Scientific progress and truth:
Kuhn
For Kuhn there can be progress in science - because a
new paradigm will normally incorporate all the explanatory
power of the old one, and do its own additional
explanatory work
But he doesn't seem to recognize any paradigm-neutral
conception of Truth towards which science is gradually
progressing.
The progress from one paradigm to another will inevitably
involve careful observation, reasoned argument,
calculation, and other 'rational' techniques;
But there will also be polemic, rhetoric, etc. as well

04/25/17 35
 Illustration: Paradigm Shifts in
Psychology
Behaviorism. In the early 1900s this challenged the
introspectionist paradigm that had been dominant in
psychology over much of the 19th century.
1913: John B. Watson wrotea paper, Psychology as the
Behaviorist Views It this had the effect of bringing about a
paradigm shift.
Watson rejected the 'introspectionist' emphasis on reports
on the contents of consciousness, as 'unscientific'.
Instead he said the goal of psychology was 'the prediction
and control of behavior'
Behaviorism was the dominant paradigm in
psychology until the 1960s.

04/25/17 36
Paradigm Shifts in Psychology (ii)
A new shift came about, influenced by the criticisms of
Chomsky and others, and by the development of
computer models of cognition;
Behaviorist attempts to explain linguistic activity threw up
increasingly severe anomalies
These were roundly criticized by Noam Chomsky in the mid-
1950s, from the vantage-point of a new paradigm: generative
grammar.
And work in AI showed how other cognitive processes could be
explained in terms of computational manipulations of internal
representations.
These examples provide at least partial support for the
views of Kuhn - although there are also grounds for
diverging from his analysis .

04/25/17 37
Lakatos: The methodology of scientific
research programmes
Imre Lakatos (a disciple of Popper who took on board
a lot of Kuhn's criticisms) developed a more
sophisticated version of Popper's views.
Research programmes (RPs) are structures that
guide research according to both negative and
positive heuristics.
Negative heuristics protect the hard core of the RP from
attack, via a belt of auxiliary hypotheses;
Positive heuristics indicate paths for future progress within
the RP

04/25/17 38
 Progressive vs degenerative RPs
RPs will be progressive if they continue to lead to the discovery of novel
phenomena
that is, if its positive heuristics allow the kind of activity that conform to Popper's
model of conjecture and refutation;
and if they map out a clearly defined plan of ongoing research
An RP will be degenerative
if it no longer leads to novel discoveries,
if it does not prescribe any clear research paths,
and if its protective belt expands or hardens so as to prevent any criticism within
the RP.
Lakatos's notion of an RP recalls the Kuhnian paradigm
but Lakatos's theory preserves the Popperian insistence on demarcating 'genuine'
scientific progress from stagnating science.

04/25/17 39
 Reductionism
It's often the case that science seeks to explain
a phenomenon in terms of more basic
processes.
For example, much contemporary psychology
attempts to explain thinking, behaviour,
consciousness etc. in terms of workings of the brain.
Brain processes can in turn be explained in terms of more basic
biological processes;
biological processes can be explained in terms of underlying
chemical structures;
chemical structures can be explained in terms of the physical
laws of atoms and sub-atomic processes.
This might be called ...
the reductionist cascade

04/25/17 40
 THE REDUCTIONIST CASCADE

THOUGHTS ->
BRAIN ->
NEUROPHYSIOLOGY ->
BIOCHEMISTRY ->
ATOMS ->
SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES ->
QUANTUM EVENTS

Does each level of this cascade smoothly reduce to the

next?

04/25/17 41
 Questioning the
reductionist cascade
Reductionism seems to be attractive:
Its a convenient way to make psychology scientific,
by rooting it in lower-level features of the world.
But there are reasons to question the
reductionist approach
For example, in psychology:
Human actions display MEANINGS.
How can meanings be reducible to neurophysiology let alone to
physics?
Psychology is not just about thought and action but also about
CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE.
It's not clear how conscious process can be reduced to processes
involving non-conscious matter.

04/25/17 42
 Some questions that arise for
computer scientists
In what sense is computer science a science?
Is it at a pre-scientific stage? Is it 'pseudo-science'?
Is it a hybrid of several kinds of existing science?
(Is it just a series of technologies that are applications of prior
scientific work in other areas [e.g. in maths, logic, electronics, etc.]
Or is it (or does it incorporate) novel, fundamental
scientific theory, in its own right?
What other scientific (or non-scientific) disciplines are
linked in with CS research?
How far does scientific research in the area of computing
fit within the reductionist picture?

04/25/17 43
 Epistemology and CS research
It's worth looking at the kinds of epistemology
and reasoning used in one's research:
A PRIORI or A POSTERIORI? Or a mixture?
Deduction; induction or what?
Are there other forms of knowledge acquisition
involved (e.g. pattern recognition??)
How far are one's key research claims open to
empirical confirmation or falisification ?
Does that matter?

04/25/17 44
 Research Paradigms
How far does your research fit into a normal science
pattern:
Are you working within an area where there are well-
established methods and a widely agreed body of findings?
Is there wide consensus or controversy?
Are you working in an area where there are moves to
create a new research paradigm? ('revolutionary'
science?)
Or does the notion of a paradigm not seem appropriate at
all?

04/25/17 45
 Hybrid research areas

Try to identify the major established CS paradigms

that most closely correspond to your chosen area of
research
E.g.. SE, HCI, AI, BIT, Theoretical CS, Web design, HW
design, Technology Impacts etc
What non-CS research paradigms are involved?
Psychology, Engineering, Business/Marketing Science,
Organisational Theory, Social Science, Philosophy, Logic,
Maths, Regional Studies, etc

04/25/17 46
 Criticism; Originality
Popper's emphasis on dogmatism versus criticism
in science is worth bearing in mind
Does either the category of 'progressive research
programme' or that of 'degenerative RP' apply to one's
research area (cf Lakatos).
how far is the research programme one is working open to
self-criticism?
How does the requirement of achieving originality in
one's doctoral work fit into the framework of the
Popper-Kuhn-Lakatos debate?

04/25/17 47
 Truth in science

How far is one's research likely to lead

to truth or knowledge, rather than just
conjecture and opinion?
How far do you think there can be such
a thing as truth or knowledge
in this area ?
in science in general?

04/25/17 48