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Physicists (String Theorists) and Philosophers Debate the Scientific Method
StartsWithABang writes: One of the most damning, albeit accurate, condemnations of String Theory that has been leveled at it is that it's untestable, non-empirical, and offers no concrete predictions or methods of falsification. Yet some have attempted to address this failing not by coming up with concrete predictions or falsifiable tests, but by redefining what is meant by theory confirmation. Many physicists and philosophers have jumped into this debate, and a recently completed workshop has produced no agreements, but lots of interesting perspectives being live blogged by a physicist. Also weighing in is a philosopher in three separate parts.
I would also add "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy" are the aether of the 21st century.
But science has moved ahead of academic philosophy. Popper et. al. were, at best, describing how the science of their time and before was practiced, and if they had not been there, science would still have been the most amazingly productive human activity in history. It's not as if scientists were sitting around waiting for philosophers to figure out how to proceed.
And I will add that the most influential recent philosopher on the practice of science was a physicist himself: Percy Bridgman. In this landmark work The Logic of Modern Physics Bridgman clarified ideas about what it means to observe or measure something.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
String theory isn't a theory at all. Maybe I'm too much of a stickler about terminology, but I think it matters here. Calling something a theory implies two things:
1) There is a model of something in the universe, which makes definite predictions that can, in principle, be tested and falsified.
2) Experiments have been conducted and the observations support the definite predictions that are made.
If the first condition is met, it's a hypothesis. If both the first and second conditions are met, we call it a theory. When a theory is repeatedly tested over a wide range of conditions and the observations still support the definite predictions, we may start to refer to it as a law.
These distinctions matter. There are plenty of people who dismiss evolution and say it's just a theory. And yet there are vast amounts of evidence that support evolution. When we refer to untested ideas as theories, we diminish people's acceptance of actual theories like evolution. If we call something a theory when it isn't even an actual hypothesis, we risk confusing people into believing that things like intelligent design and young Earth creationism are also legitimate hypotheses and theories. They're not!
We can't play fast and loose with our terminology. It confuses people who already don't really understand the scientific method. We need to be precise about what we mean.
who holds THREE doctorates: a doctorate in genetics, a Ph.D. in biology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy of science.
As someone who's now supervised and graduated a few PhD students, I'd say that multiple PhDs, especially in related field is kind of a minus point.
As someone who also has advised and has graduated doctoral students, I'd generally agree with you. Except you need to look over the whole CV in most cases to understand what's going on. This is no exception.
A PhD is supposed to teach you how to research and how to get a grounding in the field. The third aspect is actually getting that grounding in the field. You shoudn't need two PhDs in genetics and biology. If you've done one, you ought to be able to pick up the other yourself. Otherwise, you're having someone tell you what to do twice rather than doing your own research the second time.
This is all true, but this specific case is perhaps different. Note that I said the first was a "doctorate," not a Ph.D. That's because it's from Italy. There's two issues there:
(1) Terminology -- Italian "doctorates" sometimes are actually equivalent to American master's degrees, and sometimes to Ph.D.'s. I haven't looked into seeing exactly how this one would qualify, but if you just had one of the ones that would be viewed as equivalent to a U.S. master's degree, you'd want to get a "real" Ph.D. if you wanted to join academia in the U.S.
(2) Even if the Italian "doctorate" is roughly equivalent to an American Ph.D., there are various levels of rigor at Italian universities. Many American academics are a bit skeptical of Italian credentials if they aren't familiar with the specific program. If this guy wanted to get hired in American academia, it would probably be easier to do so with a Ph.D. from an American university.
Sure for philosophy, it's quite different, but even so a taught masters would probably be better.
Except if you actually want to get an academic JOB as a philosopher. Recall that besides all of your stuff about "getting grounding in the field," a Ph.D. is also a credential to get a job. If you decide mid-career that you actually want to teach/do research at an American university in a very different field, a Ph.D. is the most common expected qualification. If you don't have one in that specific field, it's harder to convince a hiring committee to consider you.
But all of this is useless theoretical consideration. My point in bringing up the credentials was not to argue that he took the most normal scientific pathway -- my guess is that he took a few turns in figuring out what he wanted to do with his career.
Rather -- I was just trying to point out that this guy is more than a "philosopher" -- he spent a couple decades doing research in science and was for over a decade was a PROFESSOR in biology, including being tenured at Stony Brook BEFORE he became a full-time "philosopher" in his positions. He's written multiple books published by places like MIT Press and University of Chicago. Look over his CV, if you want more details.
We can argue about the reasons multiple Ph.D.'s are usually bad or unnecessary, but in this specific case, we're clearly talking about a VERY qualified SCIENTIST, who later changed careers and now has an academic position as a philosopher of science.
Jeez. Before bitching about somebody's credentials, take a minute and read the link to his Wikipedia bio I already had put in my previous post.