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Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#11

Post by osullivj »

His insistence that there is no scientific method is pro-science. Science’s only method is “opportunism,” he said. “You need a toolbox full of different kinds of tools. Not only a hammer and pins and nothing else." This is what he meant by his much-maligned phrase "anything goes" (and not, as is commonly thought, that one scientific theory is as good as any other). Restricting science to a particular methodology--such as Popper's falsification scheme or Kuhn's “normal science”--would destroy it.

:s/science/software/g

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#12

Post by pjc50 »

> "I have no position!" he cried. "If you have a position, it is always something screwed down." He twisted an invisible screwdriver into the table. "I have opinions that I defend rather vigorously, and then I find out how silly they are, and I give them up!"

By modern social convention this is "trolling".

> If he was not anti-science, I asked, what did he mean by his statement in Who's Who that intellectuals are criminals? "I thought so for a long time," Feyerabend said, "but last year I crossed it out, because there are lots of good intellectuals."

This was more or less the justification used in the Cultural Revolution or "Year Zero" for murdering "intellectuals".

In the end he has a bunch of valid criticisms, but I suspect his overall outlook is, like that of a lot of people, rooted in the trauma of his time. In this case WW2, which was an extremely "scientific" war, containing both the "race science" of the Nazis plus the development of weapons of mass destruction and the use of scientific methods to maximise lethality.

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#13

Post by tokai »

Rochus wrote: post #3

If a field of knowledge is associated with a person or group of persons ("Frankfurter Schule", "Wiener Kreis"), I am a priori sceptical. Genuine scientific knowledge exists for itself and does not require authority and sectarian admiration. Philosophy can produce more useful things (e.g. knowledge representation, ontologies) than subjective individual opinions.

So how do you feel about Newtonian physics or algorithms? All knowledge is social.

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#14

Post by jhbadger »

osullivj wrote: post #11

His insistence that there is no scientific method is pro-science. Science’s only method is “opportunism,” he said. “You need a toolbox full of different kinds of tools. Not only a hammer and pins and nothing else." This is what he meant by his much-maligned phrase "anything goes" (and not, as is commonly thought, that one scientific theory is as good as any other). Restricting science to a particular methodology--suc…

Well, it's true that the cliched "scientific method" taught in high schools is a gross oversimplification, and many discoveries are made by accident rather than deliberately trying to test a clearly defined hypothesis. But in the 1980s-1990s "Science Wars", there was a movement by postmodernists to try to claim that science is just an ideology no better than religion or magic. This movement liked to quote Feyerabend and Kuhn regularly. That's why many working scientists don't really have warm feelings towards philosophers of science in general.

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#15

Post by vageli »

pjc50 wrote: post #12

> "I have no position!" he cried. "If you have a position, it is always something screwed down." He twisted an invisible screwdriver into the table. "I have opinions that I defend rather vigorously, and then I find out how silly they are, and I give them up!" By modern social convention this is "trolling". > If he was not anti-science, I asked, what did he mean by his statement in Who's Who that intellectuals are cri…

> > "I have no position!" he cried. "If you have a position, it is always something screwed down." He twisted an invisible screwdriver into the table. "I have opinions that I defend rather vigorously, and then I find out how silly they are, and I give them up!"

> By modern social convention this is "trolling".

Can you expand on this? That hardly sounds like trolling and more like "Strong opinions loosely held" which is an admirable intellectual stance to take in my opinion.

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#16

Post by Rochus »

tokai wrote: post #13
Rochus wrote: post #3

If a field of knowledge is associated with a person or group of persons ("Frankfurter Schule", "Wiener Kreis"), I am a priori sceptical. Genuine scientific knowledge exists for itself and does not require authority and sectarian admiration. Philosophy can produce more useful things (e.g. knowledge representation, ontologies) than subjective individual opinions.

So how do you feel about Newtonian physics or algorithms? All knowledge is social.

Expressing opinions does not create new, reliable scientific knowledge. Instead scientists observe, make claims, deduce the effects of their claims, and then conduct experiments suited to possibly observe these effects. So it's not just claiming. And the laws of physics exist by themselves, even when there is no human society to discover and know them.

It's a different story how knowledge is passed on or accepted by society.

We know that the proof of authority is the weakest and most unreliable type of evidence. But still the proof of authority dominates in practical everyday life. We believe things because our parents or teachers tell us, even if we had the possibility to check them ourselves from a scientific point of view. But parents and teachers are not the source of knowledge, they are only transmitters.

In the humanities ("Geisteswissenschaften", and similar disciplines) the situation is different. Knowledge is rather believable and not falsifiable, but only accepted on the authority of the person who uttered the sentence.

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#19

Post by Rochus »

mqzkehfbazkebf wrote: post #18
choonway wrote: post #17

Never heard of him. I read the article and now I know why. There are plenty of people like him out there all kinds of non-constructive thinking and talking.

You never heard of him because you are unread.

Or focused?

Why should it be bad not to waste your time with speculative things?

Re: Was Paul Feyerabend Really Science's "Worst Enemy"? (2016)

#20

Post by lidHanteyk »

tokai wrote: post #13
Rochus wrote: post #3

If a field of knowledge is associated with a person or group of persons ("Frankfurter Schule", "Wiener Kreis"), I am a priori sceptical. Genuine scientific knowledge exists for itself and does not require authority and sectarian admiration. Philosophy can produce more useful things (e.g. knowledge representation, ontologies) than subjective individual opinions.

So how do you feel about Newtonian physics or algorithms? All knowledge is social.

As with all mathematics, this is acceptable because it's named after the wrong person; in this case, the foundational work named after Newton was first exhibited by Kepler. I do sometimes hear the phrase "Keplerian element" when talking about classical orbits, named after Kepler and not Galileo.
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