by STS WordPress 2
Through the history of human existence, the advancement of science and technology has been the source of how we have evolved as a society. Although seemingly different from each other, science and technology constantly coincide and harmonize each other and are being constantly refuted as we constantly learn more. Through the works of Popper and Khun, we learn that scientific discovery and technological advancements aren’t as linear as we come to see them. Their works help us understand how science and technology corroborate together in today’s society.
How we perceive the world around us, is simply through our education and our finite understanding of the world around us. We derive facts from the limited information around us. We often think of science as linear and that we build fact upon fact and try and finish a puzzle of mystery and every new theory or theorem is a new piece leading us closer to an answer to everything. 20th-century philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, introduced the concept of the paradigm shift, defining it as a steady development of scientific knowledge interspersed with scientific revolutions that revision the way the entire way of scientific thinking. A prime example of Kuhn’s thinking was how we shifted from believing in the Ptolemaic system where we believed the Earth was the center of the universe to the Copernican view of the universe, the belief that the Sun is the center of the universe. This is also shown in Darwinism before Darwin introduced evolution, people widely believed that God was the creator of humans and we were descendants of tow singular people, Adam and Eve. These reflect Kuhn’s perception of the scientific revolution and how throughout the history of mankind there have been many shifts in thinking due to a revisionary. Through Kuhn’s findings, we are able to understand the limited scope of our knowledge and how we are subject to these paradigm shifts and nothing we know right now is definite.
The Scientific Method has been the modern standard for proving or disproving theories. Kyle Popper, a 20th-century philosopher, is known for coming up with the demarcation problem, where Popper tries to separate pseudoscience and science. Popper believed in constantly refuting claims in order to further test the accuracy of a theory. Popper believes that testability, refutability, and fallibility of demarcation. Popper believed that refuting claims would lead to more solid theories and a better understanding of claims at hand. Testing was also essential in proving claims made by scientists. Although, Kuhn countered Popper’s theory claiming that theories cannot be definitively proven by saying that falsification is no more possible than verification. Kuhn claims that both verification and falsification of an absolute standard is not possible.
These various philosophical views on the validity and reliability of science as we perceive it brings into perspective the limited scope we perceive this world in. Everything we have learned and know could be questioned and for all we know could be wrong. Popper and Kuhn show the different perspectives shown through how we perceive science and how we utilize it in our everyday lives. We center our lives in different sciences and pseudosciences to improve our everyday lives. Popper and Kuhn show that nothing is absolute but using technology and science together we can further improve our understanding of the world and our way of life.
Sources:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/