Phil. 220, Week 4

Discussion Questions
  1. What are the differences between Kuhn and Lakatos, and has Lakatos succeeded in resolving these differences in his favor?
  2. What is the difference between and model and a theory? Do you think that there has to be a well articulated theory behind every scientific research program (consider examples like research into how the brain works, or how vision works (see the Crick text), or sciences like meteorology or medicine)? If there are research programs without theories, can Kuhn and Lakatos allow that such research programs are scientific. Can Popper?
  3. Critically evaluate Lakatos's notion of one model superceding another in planetary astronomy. For example, does it really make sense to say that one Ptolemaic model is greater empirical content than another?
  4. Why does Lakatos offer an account of when one model supercedes another, but not of when one theory should supercedes another? Why doesn't he follow Musgrave's recommendation and provide a rule for theory change? Does he think that model change is rational while the theory change is not?
  5. Explain Lakatos's distinction between prediction and novel prediction. What is the difference? Why is this distinction so important for Lakatos?
  6. Musgrave's second criticism against Lakatos was the positive heuristic in the Prout program (if chemical purification does not work, then try physical separation) was not specified in advance. If positive heuristics are not generally specified in advance, or if they do not exist, then this raises doubt whether there is genuine prediction in science as opposed to mere accommodation. Who is right? Discuss.
  7. Apply Lakatos's demarcation criterion to other commonly alleged examples of pseudoscience, like alchemy versus chemistry, phrenology, Freudian psychology, Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision or Erich van Daniken's Chariots of the Gods, or any other example you know about.