What is science and scientific reasoning

Source: Dr Samir Okasha | Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction (Excerpt) | 2002

What is science? What is it that makes something a science? Surely science is just the attempt to
understand, explain and predict the world we live in? But is it the whole story? After all, the various
religions also attempt to understand and explain the world, but religion is not usually regarded as a
branch of science. Similarly, astrology and fortune-telling are attempts to predict the future, but most
people would not describe these activities as science. Or consider history. Historians try to understand
and explain what happened in the past, but history is usually classified as an arts subject, not a science
subject.

Many people believe that the distinguishing features of science lie in the particular methods scientists
use to investigate the world. This suggestion is quite plausible. For many sciences do employ
distinctive methods of enquiry that are not found in non-scientific disciplines. An obvious example is
the use of experiments. Not all sciences are experimental though – astronomers obviously do not do
experiments on the heavens, but have to contend themselves with careful observation instead. The
same is true of many social sciences. Another important feature of science is the construction of
theories. Scientists usually want to explain results in terms of a general theory. It is an important
problem to understand 15 how techniques such as experimentation, observation and theory-
construction have enabled scientists to unravel so many of nature’s secrets.

Science vs. Pseudo-science

Karl Popper, an influential 20th century philosopher of science, thought that the fundamental feature of
a scientific theory is that it should be falsifiable. To call a theory falsifiable is not to say that it is false.
Rather, it means that the theory makes some definite predictions that are capable of being tested
against experience. If these predictions turn out to be wrong, then the theory has been falsified or
disproved. So a falsifiable theory is one that we might discover to be false – it is not compatible with
every possible course of experience. Popper thought that some supposedly scientific theories did not
satisfy this condition and thus did not deserve to be called science at all; rather they were merely
pseudo-science.

Karl Marx (“father” of modern communist ideology”) claimed that in industrialised societies,
capitalism would give way to socialism and ultimately to communism. But when this didn’t happen,
instead of admitting that Marx’s theory was wrong, Marxists would invent an ad hoc explanation for
why what happened was actually perfectly consistent with their theory. For example, they might say
that the inevitable progress to communism had been temporarily slowed by the rise of the welfare
state, which ‘softened’ the proletariat and weakened their revolutionary zeal. In this sort of way,
Marx’s theory could be made compatible with any possible course of events. Therefore, Marx’s
theory does not qualify as genuinely scientific, according to Popper’s criterion.

Popper contrasted Marx’s theory with Einstein’s theory of gravitation, also known as general
relativity. Unlike Marx’s theory, Einstein’s theory made a very definite prediction: that light rays
from distant stars would be deflected by the gravitational field of the sun. Normally this effect would
be impossible to observe – except during a solar eclipse. In 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington organised two
expeditions to observe the solar eclipse of that year, one to Brazil and one to the island of Principe off
the Atlantic coast of Africa. The expeditions found that the starlight was indeed deflected by the sun,
by almost exactly the amount Einstein had predicted. Einstein had made a definite, precise prediction,
which was confirmed by observations. Had it turned out that starlight was not deflected by the sun,
this would have shown that Einstein was wrong. So Einstein’s theory satisfies the criterion of
falsifiability.

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Some regard Popper’s criterion as overly simplistic. Popper criticized Marxists for explaining away
data that appeared to conflict with their theories, rather than accepting that the theories had been
refuted. However, this very procedure is routinely used by ‘respectable’ scientists and has led to
important scientific discoveries. Newton’s gravitational theory, for example, made predictions about
the paths the planets should follow as they orbit the sun. For the most part, these predictions were
borne out by observation. However, the observed orbit of Uranus consistently differed from what
Newton’s theory predicted. This puzzle was solved in 1846 by Adams and Leverrier, working
independently. They suggested that there was another planet, as yet undiscovered, exerting an
additional gravitational force on Uranus. Shortly afterwards, the planet Neptune was discovered,
almost exactly where Adams and Leverrier had predicted.

Now clearly we should not criticise Adams and Leverrier’s behaviour as ‘unscientific’. But they did
precisely what Popper criticised the Marxists for doing. They began with a theory – Newton’s theory
of gravity – which made an incorrect prediction about Uranus’ orbit. Rather than concluding that
Newton’s theory must be wrong, they stuck by the theory and attempted to explain away the
conflicting observations by postulating a new planet. Similarly, when capitalism showed no signs of
giving way to communism, Marxists did not conclude that Marx’s theory must be wrong, but stuck by
the theory and tried to explain away conflicting observations in other ways.

This suggests that Popper’s attempt to demarcate science from pseudo-science cannot be quite right.
For the Adams/Leverrier example is by no means atypical. In general, scientists do not just abandon
their theories whenever they conflict with observational data. Usually, they look for ways of
eliminating conflict without giving up their theory. And it is worth remembering that virtually every
theory in science conflicts with some observations – finding a theory that fits all the data perfectly is
extremely difficult. Obviously, if a theory persistently conflicts with more and more data, and no
plausible ways of explaining away the conflict are found, it will eventually have to be rejected. But
little progress would be made if scientists simply abandoned their theories at the first sign of trouble.

The failure of Popper’s criterion throws up an important question: Is it actually possible to find some
common feature shared by all things we call ‘science’ and not shared by anything else? Popper’s
assumption that science has an essential nature is questionable. After all, science is a heterogeneous
activity, encompassing a wide range of different disciplines and theories. It may be that they share
some fixed set of features that define what it is to be a science, but it may not – in which case a simple
criterion for demarcating science from pseudo-science is unlikely to be found.

Scientific reasoning

Consider the following argument: The first five eggs in this carton were rotten. All the eggs have the
same expiry date stamped on them. Therefore, the sixth egg will be rotten too. This looks like a
perfectly sensible piece of reasoning. But nonetheless it is not a proof. Even if the first five eggs were
indeed rotten, and even if all the eggs do have the same expiry date, this does not guarantee that the
sixth egg will be rotten too. It is logically possible for the premises of this inference to be true, yet the
conclusion false. This kind of inference is known as inductive inference – moving from premises
about objects we have examined to conclusions about objects we have not examined (in this example,
eggs).

We rely on inductive reasoning throughout our lives. For example, when you turn on your computer,
you are confident it will not explode in your face. Why? Because you turn on your computer every
day and it has never exploded in your face up to now. The inference from ‘up until now, my computer
has not exploded when I turned it on’ to ‘my computer will not explode when I turn it on this time’ is
inductive. The premise of this inference does not entail the conclusion. It is logically possible that
your computer will explode this time, even though it has never done so previously.

Do scientists use inductive reasoning too? The answer seems to be yes. Consider the genetic disease

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known as Down’s syndrome (DS). Geneticists tell us DS sufferers have an additional chromosome –
90 they have 47 instead of the normal 46. How do they know this? The answer, of course, is that they
have examined a large number of DS sufferers and found that each has an additional chromosome. It
is easy to see that the inference is inductive. The fact that the DS sufferers in the sample studied had
47 chromosomes doesn’t prove that all DS sufferers do. It is possible, though unlikely, that the sample
was an unrepresentative one. In effect, scientists use inductive reasoning whenever they move from
limited data to a more general conclusion. But what justifies the faith we place in induction?

The Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that we can give no satisfactory answer. He began by
noting that whenever we make inductive inferences, we seem to presuppose the ‘uniformity of nature’
(UN). To see what Hume means by this, recall the inductive inferences above (eggs; computer; DS;
even Newton’s law of gravity). In each of these cases, our reasoning seems to depend on the
assumption that objects we haven’t examined will be similar in the relevant respects, to objects of the
same sort that we have examined. That assumption is what Hume means by UN.

But how do we know that the UN assumption is actually true? Imagine how you would go about
persuading someone who doesn’t trust inductive reasoning. You would probably say: ‘Look,
inductive reasoning has worked pretty well up to now. By using induction, scientists have split the
atom, landed men on the moon, invented computers, and so on.’ But of course, this wouldn’t convince
the doubter. For to argue that induction is trustworthy because it has worked well up to now is to
reason in an inductive way! Such an argument would carry no weight with someone who doesn’t
already trust induction. That is Hume’s fundamental point.

Normally we think of science as the very paradigm of rational enquiry. We place great faith in what
scientists tell us about the world. But science relies on induction, and Hume’s argument seems to
show that induction cannot be rationally justified. If Hume is right, the foundations on which science
is built do not look quite as solid as we might have hoped.