If we believe there is a history of science, then it seems right to believe much of the evidence for later theories is around when it is construed in an earlier one we later come to modify or reject. Examples would be that the evidence for Darwinism was around when we had daft creationism, and for relativity in Newton's day - and in the progressions since. In simple terms, under-determinism is expressed in the general critical reasoning in the following:
At the heart of the underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence is the simple idea that the evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it. In a textbook example, if I all I know is that you spent $10 on apples and oranges and that apples cost $1 while oranges cost $2, then I know that you did not buy six oranges, but I do not know whether you bought one orange and eight apples, two oranges and six apples, and so on. A simple scientific example can be found in the rationale behind the sensible methodological adage that “correlation does not imply causation”. If watching lots of cartoons causes children to be more violent in their playground behavior, then we should (barring complications) expect to find a correlation between levels of cartoon viewing and violent playground behavior. But that is also what we would expect to find if children who are prone to violence tend to enjoy and seek out cartoons more than other children, or if propensities to violence and increased cartoon viewing are both caused by some third factor (like general parental neglect or excessive consumption of Twinkies). So a high correlation between cartoon viewing and violent playground behavior is evidence that (by itself) simply underdetermines what we should believe about the causal relationship between the two. But it turns out that this simple and familiar predicament only scratches the surface of the various ways in which problems of underdetermination can arise in the course of scientific investigation - this from Stanford Encyclopeadia of Philosophy online - I hope we are all familiar with the general line of critical reasoning, at least in not assuming too much from what is under consideration. No convincing general case has been made for the presumption that there are empirically equivalent rivals to all or most scientific theories, or to any theories besides those for which such equivalents can actually be constructed. Our efforts to confirm scientific theories go on amongst theories which are not empirically equivalent but are equally (or at least reasonably) well confirmed by all the evidence we happen to have in hand at the moment and so long as we think that there is (probably) at least one such (fundamentally distinct) alternative available we are in a transient predicament whenever we are faced with a decision about whether to believe a given theory at a given time. There is a convincing case for contrastive underdetermination of theory by evidence, and that the evidence for it is available in the historical record of scientific inquiry itself. We think that our own scientific theories are considerably better confirmed by the evidence than any rivals we have actually produced. A central question is whether we should believe that there are well confirmed alternatives to our best scientific theories that are presently unconceived by us. And the primary reason we should believe that there are is the long history of repeated transient underdetermination by previously unconceived alternatives across the course of scientific inquiry. In the progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary quasi-mechanical theories, for instance, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory dominated the practice of its day also offered compelling support for each of the later alternatives (unconceived at the time) that would ultimately come to displace it. My old bee-in-bonnet of the role of future memory and accurate history in developing science (though I'm more interested in developing society) other than as dogma has some of its explanation in this, including a sense that we are not excluding values in science but trying to develop better ones and in a process of development. I do not believe theory is a individual mental product but more to do with (or a product of) a commitment to 'evidence' over time past and future and epistemological belief should be placed in this and not theory. 'Evidence', of course, may not be as simple to define as in the experiment of walking up to a guy with a large wet fish in hand, saying uncomplimentary things about his mother and discovering your solipsist reaction to the swing of the said fish in the moment in which you experience your face. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
