Sherlock Holmes, Science and Understanding
[quote=Sherlock Holmes]Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.[/quote]
In science, observations are made and a number of hypotheses are constructed to explain these observations. Competing hypotheses are analyzed and discarded by the method of elimination which Sherlock Holmes uses. The one hypothesis that survives is then taken to be truth. Of course, there's the need for positive evidence to prove a hypothesis true but, by far, competing hypotheses are dealt with by elimination.
So, we could say that the hypothesis that we agree is one we arrived at NOT by confirmation only but also by disconfirming other hypotheses. My question concerns one aspect of such a method - that this does NOT imply that you understood anything at all.
To illustrate:
Imagine a multiple choice question like below:
What is 8 + 16?
a) apple
b) 24
Even if you do NOT understand math you can arrive, like in science, at the "correct" answer by the method of elimination like so: a) isn't the correct answer because it's not a number. So the answer must be b).
Notice that we arrived at the "correct" answer without any understanding of mathematics simply by using Sherlock's method.
Is a similar thing happening in science? Could it be that we don't actually understand anything at all?
One issue with what I'm saying is that we not only disconfirm but also confirm hypotheses. It's not that we rely ONLY on the method of elimination. However, if Karl Popper is correct then we can never ever confirm a scientific hypothesis. We can only eliminate possibilities which brings us back to my question:
Do we understand anything in science?
In science, observations are made and a number of hypotheses are constructed to explain these observations. Competing hypotheses are analyzed and discarded by the method of elimination which Sherlock Holmes uses. The one hypothesis that survives is then taken to be truth. Of course, there's the need for positive evidence to prove a hypothesis true but, by far, competing hypotheses are dealt with by elimination.
So, we could say that the hypothesis that we agree is one we arrived at NOT by confirmation only but also by disconfirming other hypotheses. My question concerns one aspect of such a method - that this does NOT imply that you understood anything at all.
To illustrate:
Imagine a multiple choice question like below:
What is 8 + 16?
a) apple
b) 24
Even if you do NOT understand math you can arrive, like in science, at the "correct" answer by the method of elimination like so: a) isn't the correct answer because it's not a number. So the answer must be b).
Notice that we arrived at the "correct" answer without any understanding of mathematics simply by using Sherlock's method.
Is a similar thing happening in science? Could it be that we don't actually understand anything at all?
One issue with what I'm saying is that we not only disconfirm but also confirm hypotheses. It's not that we rely ONLY on the method of elimination. However, if Karl Popper is correct then we can never ever confirm a scientific hypothesis. We can only eliminate possibilities which brings us back to my question:
Do we understand anything in science?
Comments (19)
Simplistically, whtat we mean by 'scientific understanding' depends on a whole web of interconnections which jointly support a range of observations. That interconnected structure, which includes a particular terminology and even agreements about relevance, is what Kuhn called a paradigm. Paradigms tend to supercede each other giving different explanatory accounts (e.g. the explanation of 'falling' differs from Newtonian and Einsteinian povs). Paradigm shifts are prompted by the accumulation of counter examples which resist current 'explanation'. Its a continuous process of refinement of predictability, but not a quest getting closer to the 'truth' in the lay sense of the word.
BTW your example above of 'hypothesis rejection with understanding' is flawed since the minimal understanding of the difference between numberband letter symbols is already paradigmatically assumed. Nor do competing 'scientific hypotheses' normally operate in a 'forced choice alternative' format beloved by Sherlock !
I see. So, each theory supports and props up the other like in a matrix of atoms in a crystal? They verify each other with ever increasing certainty. It all makes sense individually and also as a whole. Ok.
However, we could construct a world of false theories that does the exact same thing. Sophisticated criminals can spin tales that fit together so well that no one'll notice the lies.
I'm also aware that more than one hypothesis may match the observed data. In such cases Occam's razor is used to choose the simplest theory. As you can see simplicity doesn't have anything to do with understanding.
Yes Sherlock Holmes was a bad choice but I needed the quote which is simple and elegant.
This proves my point. We actually didn't understand the truth, forcing a paradigm shift.
Sherlock, the great logician, even as a baby just born in a dark cave could infer the universe from a grain of sand, and in the next moment derive the existence of Niagara Falls and the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans from a drop of water.
:grin: :clap: :up:
“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary.”
“This class of opium is great, too!”
“High school, Watson.”
No. The word 'truth' is not applicable. The word 'truth' is meaningful in Sherlock's 'crime/courtroom secenario, but not 'science'
A paradigm shift gives 'better understanding' in the sense of 'greater prediction and control'. This is a significant philosophical issue which raises the pragmatist/Nietzchean position that there can only ever be 'descriptions', some more useful than others.
The history of that point involves Kant's distinction between phenomena and noumena and the suhsequent demise of the concept of 'things-in-themselves'.
Yes, I agree. There probably is a list of criteria a hypothesis has to fulfill and subsequent to that adopted as the best among many others.
Why do you think it's important to be cognizant of the difference between truth and just a description? In my humble opinion to be aware that scientific theories are descriptions, liable to alteration/deletion on the basis of evidence instead of truths which are by definition immutable, is an acknowledgment of the limitations of science - its inductive uncertainty.
The reason is that 'truth' implies a concept of a 'reality' independent of the needs of observers.
That independence is questioned by post-Kantian developments, by quantim physics, and most significantly by developments in neuroscience which have resulted in the term 'neurophilosophy'.
The implications of the latter extend to the very nature of 'scientific questioning' itself in that brain research does not seem to support operations we might call 'causal reasoning'.
(Obviously these comments indicate the potential for further threads but I am dubious abous the level contributions which might ensue)
The work is already done. It's impossible.
Check.
:up:
You'd make a great detective. Please just don't calculate my medicine dosage :lol:
It's 1/7 proportionately - liquid to sulphate.
:ok:
MCQ for me. Shamshir is
1. Doctor
2. Pharmacist
3. Mathematician
4. Chemist
5. Intoxicated :point:
6. none of the above
7. all of the above