D. GruberSTS 214

On Scientific Investigation

• Kuhn - core ideas:– scientific communities are organized by ideas and

practices, not ideals– anomalies are typically set aside– change happens when anomalies can no longer be

ignored– the history of science is not one long chain of

progress but a series of changes

Review

See your Sismondo text, p. 20-22; also see Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Review

• Kuhn and Heidegger – Both view science as “modern” but from different

perspectives.• For Kuhn, traditional views of science are “modern” because

of an underlying progress narrative and the strong belief in unbiased observation of Nature.

• For Heidegger, science is “modern” because it encompasses/reproduces the “picture” of the modern age, which focuses on objectification of the world and numerical organization of things, which overwhelms one’s ability to “see” differently.

• Both views move us a bit toward a “post-modern” sensibility.

Review

• This “post-modern” sensibility, insofar as it is exercised in STS, recognizes problems in scientific practice and up-ends the “modern” (scientific) tenets.– For example: think about the problem of

prediction, also called problem of induction• The n + 1st case could be different, no matter how large

n is. This is a view that rejects verification & solidified knowledge, stressing practices of knowledge-making.• What story corresponds with this problem?

See your Sismondo text, p. 3

That’s right – the Swan Story!

Now, let’s learn a few more “problems” of scientific practice that have been pointed out over the years.

Duhem-Quine Thesis

Image cropped from original; found here: http://cns.iu.edu/research.htmlImage featured here: Ke, Weimao and Börner, Katy. (2005). Mapping the Social Network and Expertise of "Network Science" Researchers. Report to the U.S. National Research Council study on Network Science, 88-92, The National Academies Press.

“A theory can never be exclusively tested in isolation. What is tested is an entire framework or network of beliefs”

- Sismondo (2010). Introduction to STS.

Example • “When Newton’s

predictions of the path of the moon failed to match the data he had, he did not abandon his theory of gravity, his laws of motion, or any of the calculating devices he had employed. Instead he….” What?

For quote, see Sismondo text, p. 5Image source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EUmVvmbV1Ms/Tc-KQdD_r4I/AAAAAAAAAEA/1xpwskfrOGs/s1600/Sir+Isaac+Newton.jpg

Example

• That’s right! He faked it!

- Why?

Lesson of Duhem-Quine

• “It shows that multiple resources are used (not all explicitly) to make a prediction and that it is impossible to isolate for blame only one of those resources when the prediction appears wrong.” – Sismondo, p. 5

• Why would Sismondo say it impossible to isolate only one resource?

Thinking through possibilities• What happens when we isolate one resource, make an adjustment, and then the prediction works out? Consider this

scenario. What might be the problem that needs an adjustment?

S1 The F5 motor area of a monkey’s brain has been shown to contain mirror neurons—MNs are Ns that fire when a monkey watches a banana peeled and when it peels a banana.

S2 Neurons activated in the equivalent F5 motor area in humans when fMRI study participants watched people in a video pick up a cup and when the participant actually picked up a cup; they were deemed mirror neurons. (Note: other motor neurons only fired when the participant picked up the cup. They are not MNs.)

S3 Based on these two studies, MNs were interpreted as an internal motor simulation; that is, they were called the biological basis for how humans could see someone else picking up a cup and “understand” what the movements meant, i.e. through simulating the movements, we correlate them to, say, taking a drink.

S4 We also know from experience that humans can “understand” other’s emotions based on seeing facial movements.

P1 We expected MNs in the F5 motor area to fire when we made participants watch other people’s emotional facial expressions; we expected the MN firing to explain how people can identify emotions, through the “simulation mechanism.”

R1 Zero Ns in the F5 motor area fired when happy faces were viewed by study participants looking at pictures in an fMRI scanner.

Some Possibilities• S2: Study results were flawed (bad measurement, false firing signals).

– S2: Maybe there is no human F5 equivalent or maybe no MNs in that area or anywhere in humans.

• S3: Interpretation flawed. Maybe not “simulation” of observed events. Maybe only a prediction of the action-related goal of a body movement.

• S4: Maybe the F5 motor area only covers body or arm movements, not facial expressions.

• R1: Maybe the study in question was flawed. – bad measurement?– no base of comparison with typical Ns.– Pictures are not the same as live movements—processed differently?– Happy faces have no discernable goals.

So?

• What’s the point?– “Scientists choose the best account among competing

hypothesis.”– One the one hand, you can be a “realist.”– But on the other hand, you have a network of beliefs

that can be questioned because theories are always underdetermined by any set of empirical evidence. … Huh? …

– Consider this: -4,-2/ -3,1/ -1,3/1,1/3,-1/ • What’s the logical hypothesis for the line of change?

Quote from Sismondo, 2010, Intro to STS, p. 5

What’s it mean to be underdetermined?

Consider this explanation:• 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… 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.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/

Okay, okay, what’s the point?

• STS takes a “critical view.”• But also… I want you to know the four

Superior Stases of Scientific Practice.– Evidence needed to prove– Methods used to obtain– Meaning / Interpretation of work– Value of the work

*For more on Superior Stases, see: Prelli, L. (1989) A Rhetoric of Science. U of South Carolina Press.