Welcome

This website discusses philosophy of science and the contents of the concept science. The aim is to define several concepts and to give university students a summary of the field.

As some kind of Saturday sweets, an attempt to summarize the concept of knowledge is included.

And... please have some patience with my skills in English.

What is philosophy? What is philosophy of science? What is falsification?

A hypothesis is a statement, an idea, a fantasy or just any simple thought. It is neither scientific nor non-scientific. A hypothesis may be supported by observations reported according to a "scientific method".

Verification and falsification of a hypothesis are epistemologically equivalent. Both rest on conclusions about our reality, created using induction. They increase or decrease, respectively, our confidence in the hypothesis

Science is the result from an activity like e.g. sport results. Scientific results are reported according to a "scientific method". Such results give possibilities of "building further".

Karl Popper claimed that falsifiability defines if a theory is scientific. In order to understand his theories we may investigate how they compare to reality.

Both the Jewish-Christian-Muslim story of creation and astrology should, according to Popper's claims, be regarded as scientific.

This is also true for JRR Tolkien's epic "Lord of the Rings" and for the stories by JK Rowling about Harry Potter.

Scientific results are not the same as "truth" nor as "absolutely certain knowledge". Philosophy of science is hence quite different from philosophy of knowledge.

Paradigm shifts can be seen in all human activities, e.g. within science.

There are representatives from Christian groups, alternative lifestyle and the universities that want to redefine the context of the word science.

A frequently used book in antiscientific teaching is: AF Chalmers: What is this thing called Science?

Overview, Description & Comments

Empiricism, Rationalism, and Skepticism are three main views in our relation to "knowledge".
We are all empiricists, rationalists and sceptics.

We communicate and help each other. We also convey our experiences to each other. Then we tell about matters we have observed and about hypotheses that we have created from the observations.

Unfortunately, errors may be present in our stories. We may have been mistaken during the observation, interpretation or conclusion. Or we may even have been telling lies.

We have gradually realized that if we follow certain rules during our storytelling, we reduce the risk of such errors. Our rules are called a scientific method.

The narratives that follow a scientific method become easy to scrutinize. The stories and the reviews of them together form what we call science.

Stories according to our scientific method are developed when new or complementary observations or hypotheses are added. Hence science becomes anti-dogmatic and anti-authoritative.