Page 363 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV
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1664 berkshire encyclopedia of world history
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not
happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which
may or may not be divinely inspired. • Stephen W. Hawking (b. 1942)
sometimes complex experimental methods. Then, using There is much truth in the inductivist view of modern
the results of their observations, they came up with gen- science. Though examples of careful, empirical observa-
eral hypotheses about the nature of reality, using the log- tion can be found in all human societies, never before
ical method of induction. had so many scientific observations been conducted so
In this view, scientific theories work because they are systematically and with such care and precision, and
based on meticulous observation and rigorous logic, never before had natural philosophers tried so rigorously
which explains why they offer exceptionally accurate to build from them universal theories about the nature of
and useful descriptions of the world. Galileo Galilei reality. Unfortunately, though, the method of induction
(1564–1642) is often thought to have exemplified the cannot guarantee the truth of scientific theories. In the
new experimental methods in his observations of the sun first place, it is now clear that our minds shape and reor-
and planets through the recently invented telescope and ganize information as they receive it; so we can never sep-
in his experiments rolling balls down sloping planes to arate observation from theorization in the neat way
study the effects of gravity, while the achievement of Isaac presupposed in the simplest models of inductive logic.
Newton (1642–1727) in formulating general laws of But the most fundamental problem is logical. Induc-
motion is often taken as a paradigm example of the tion leads us from particular observations about the
possibilities for radical generalization on the basis of world to general theories about the world.Yet no obser-
information derived from careful observation. The vations can embrace all of reality, so induction involves
seventeenth-century English natural philosopher (the con- a leap of faith that the small sample of reality that we can
temporary term; now we would say scientist) Francis observe directly is characteristic of the whole of reality.
Bacon (1561–1626) was probably the first to describe Though it makes sense to rely on theories based on a large
the method of induction systematically, but similar argu- body of empirical evidence, induction can never yield con-
ments about the nature of modern science are still widely clusions whose truth is certain. (Bertrand Russell’s famous
held today. Here, for example,
is a modern definition of how
science works: “Scientists pro-
pose theories and assess those
theories in the light of obser-
vational and experimental evi-
dence; what distinguishes
science is the careful and sys-
tematic way in which its claims
are based on evidence” (Wor-
rall 1998, 573).
Nine scientists in
1907 in the Tian
Shan mountains in
Central Asia oberving a
solar eclipse through
two telescopes.