PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy of Science and Research Methodology 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Karl Popper's criterion of demarcation between science and non-science holds that scientific theories must be:
- Verifiable through positive empirical evidence
- Falsifiable in principle by observable evidence (Correct answer)
- Accepted by consensus among trained scientists
- Derived logically from first principles
Correct answer: Falsifiable in principle by observable evidence
Popper argued that falsifiability — the potential to be refuted by observation — is what distinguishes genuine science from pseudo-science or metaphysics.
Question 2: Thomas Kuhn's concept of a 'paradigm shift' refers to:
- A gradual accumulation of scientific knowledge over decades
- A revolutionary replacement of one dominant scientific framework by another (Correct answer)
- The process by which scientists verify a hypothesis through repeated testing
- A shift in government funding priorities for scientific research
Correct answer: A revolutionary replacement of one dominant scientific framework by another
Kuhn described paradigm shifts as revolutionary episodes in science where an existing framework is overthrown and replaced by a fundamentally new one, as in the Copernican revolution.
Question 3: The problem of induction, famously articulated by David Hume, concerns:
- Whether deductive arguments can be applied to empirical observations
- The logical justification for inferring general laws from particular observations (Correct answer)
- The impossibility of conducting controlled scientific experiments
- Whether scientific theories are reducible to mathematical statements
Correct answer: The logical justification for inferring general laws from particular observations
Hume showed that no finite number of observations can logically justify a universal generalization, because inductive inferences go beyond the observed evidence.
Question 4: In the philosophy of science, 'underdetermination' refers to the thesis that:
- Scientific data alone is insufficient to determine the truth of a unique theory (Correct answer)
- Scientists are unable to gather enough empirical data to test their hypotheses
- Mathematical models are always underdeveloped relative to observed phenomena
- No theory can be tested without a prior theoretical framework
Correct answer: Scientific data alone is insufficient to determine the truth of a unique theory
Underdetermination holds that any given body of evidence is logically compatible with multiple, mutually inconsistent theories, so data alone cannot uniquely determine which theory is correct.
Question 5: Imre Lakatos introduced the concept of 'research programmes' to show that:
- Science progresses only through revolutionary overthrow of paradigms
- Scientific theories are immune to falsification by a single counterexample (Correct answer)
- Scientists should immediately abandon a theory when anomalies arise
- All scientific knowledge is relative to cultural context
Correct answer: Scientific theories are immune to falsification by a single counterexample
Lakatos argued that scientists protect a theoretical 'hard core' with a 'protective belt' of auxiliary hypotheses, meaning a single anomaly does not immediately refute the core theory.
Question 6: Which of the following best describes 'scientific realism'?
- Science should only describe observable phenomena without making claims about unobservables
- Successful scientific theories approximately describe entities and processes that exist independently of our minds (Correct answer)
- All scientific concepts are convenient fictions useful for prediction but not literally true
- Science is a social construction reflecting the power structures of society
Correct answer: Successful scientific theories approximately describe entities and processes that exist independently of our minds
Scientific realism holds that mature, successful scientific theories give us an approximately true picture of both observable and unobservable aspects of the world.
Question 7: The Duhem-Quine thesis holds that it is impossible to test a scientific hypothesis in isolation because:
- All hypotheses contain internal logical contradictions
- Testing requires auxiliary assumptions that are themselves theoretical (Correct answer)
- Experimental apparatus cannot be calibrated without circular reasoning
- Observational data is always filtered through subjective perception
Correct answer: Testing requires auxiliary assumptions that are themselves theoretical
Duhem and Quine argued that any test of a hypothesis also implicates a web of background assumptions, so when an experiment fails, the blame cannot be pinned on the hypothesis alone.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Philosophy of Science and Research Methodology 1
Karl Popper's criterion of demarcation between science and non-science holds that scientific theories must be: