The dynamics of science

• The only moment when science is cumulative is when science is normal, within the paradigmatic phase science is cumulative but this is the only way according to Kuhn.
• Every knowledge is theory-laden.
• We have interpreted experiential data, rather than pure experiential data.
• Interpretation is provided by an observational theory, i.e., a theory aimed at providing reliability to the experimental procedures.
• When using a telescope, the principles governing for optic are considered as valid.
• Interpretation is provided by an observational theory that is constituted by principles and laws of optic.
• Theoretical interpretation is not necessary for understanding celestial bodies via the principle of optics.
• The relationship between theory and data is strong, and if you reject the theory, the datum itself has to be rejected.
• The lack of a common experiential basis makes the change/modification of a theory a matter of convention, connected to extra-scientific factors.
• Assuming that the observational theories are independent of the theories to be controlled allows to distinguish between observational theory, which are responsible for theory ladenness, and the theories which are the object of the justification process.
• The dynamics of science according to Neopositivism involves a cumulative understanding of science development: a new theory does not radically supersede the old one, rather, the former can be considered as an extension of the latter.
• When a scientific theory is superseded by another then the succeeding theory will have a wider explanatory range, including phenomena the earlier theory could not account for ; and it will provide approximative explanations for the empirical laws implied by its predecessor.
• The new theory is wider than the other one, and this makes the old theory an extreme case of the new one.
• Scientific progress is achieved mainly by the elimination of falsified theories.
• Both conditions (of consistency and meaning invariance) are rejected.
• For popper truth IS correspondence to facts (or reality), however we are seekers for truth but we are not his possessors.
• The condition of meaning invariance states that the primitive concepts of an old theory can be defined in terms of primitive concepts of a new theory.
• The condition of meaning invariance holds: the concepts of an old theory can be defined in terms of the concepts of a new theory.
• Verisimilitude may be defined as the truth content minus falsity content.
• The theory of relativity is not contradictory with classical mechanics and can be viewed as an extreme case of the theory of relativity.
• Theories are not compatible and, in some cases, the cumulative understanding of scientific progress doesn’t hold.
• Feyerabend takes history into account in order to affirm that we do not have the conditions of consistency and meaning invariance in science: we have a lot of examples in history of science that demonstrate the inconsistency between theories.
• Scientific development is to walk towards truth, to discover true claims about the universe.
• In the cumulative understanding of the development of science, the condition of consistency states that the axioms of an old theory can be demonstrated as theorems of a new theory.
• The condition of consistency does not hold: falsified theories cannot be included as extreme cases within a larger theory.
• According to Popper, scientific progress is a gradual approach to truth, this is why he formulated the notion of verisimilitude.
• Every theory has a truth (and falsity) content: the class of its true (or false) consequences.
• According to Kuhn, only during periods of normal science progress seems to be evident.
• Post-Popperian philosophy of science also rejects the notion of scientific progress.
• The very notion of truth is put into question by Kuhn.
• If the relationship between true and false statements favors for true statements, the theory is nearer to the truth than the other.