Question

There is a web of issues pertaining to the theoretical underpinnings of science that I would like to read more about, and so if anyone could take a look at the following claims and questions and recommend me further resources that discuss these kinds of issues, I’d appreciate it. It seems to be a fundamental assumption of science that empirical evidence must, in principle, accord with logical or mathematical theory, and vice versa; that any sufficiently strong observed pattern in reality has a corresponding theoretical description that we can discover and integrate with other theoretical descriptions, and that any sufficiently strong theoretical description can predict patterns in reality we may observe. But why should these things be connected? Note I’m not necessarily disputing that they are connected but asking, how can we explain why they are connected?

Answer 1

In science, there are different views on the connection between empirical evidence and theoretical descriptions. The instrumentalist view suggests that theories make predictions verified through testing, while the realist view argues that theories provide true explanations through empirical testing. The goal of science is to obtain testable explanations that predict future results, allowing scientists to understand and intervene in the world's causal mechanisms.

Step-by-step explanation:

In science, there are several views on how empirical evidence and theoretical descriptions are connected. One view is the instrumentalist view, which states that scientific theories make predictions that are verified through empirical testing. Another view is the realist view, which argues that scientific theories provide true explanations because their predictions are verified through empirical testing. Finally, the conceptual relativist view suggests that the connection between empirical evidence and theoretical descriptions is based on coherence.

The goal of science is to obtain knowledge in the form of testable explanations (hypotheses) that can predict the results of future experiments. This allows scientists to gain an understanding of reality and intervene in its causal mechanisms. The better an hypothesis is at making predictions, the more likely it is to be correct.

Science is all about evaluating the support for different ideas about how the world works. Hypotheses are educated guesses that serve as guideposts to help scientists evaluate new observations and hypotheses. By reconstructing premises that led to a given conclusion, scientists can explain the reasons for a conclusion that is evident through observation.