F34PPP #6: Maybe, Minister… Philip Moriarty School of Physics & Astronomy philip.moriarty@nottingham.ac.uk www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/research/nano

Today Popular perception of science Kuhn and scientific revolutions Can politics and science speak the same language? Evidence-driven policy?

Public Perception of Science http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/inphdeep/creativity-and-science/

http://electroncafe.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/scientific-process-rage/

Vive la revolution?

Vive la revolution? “…unquestionably the most influential work of the philosophy of science in the last 50 years” [Okasha]

Science is…? cumulative context of discovery and context of justification entirely distinct evaluations are value-free sharp distinction between theory and experiment scientific terms have fixed and precise meanings

Science is…? …in a word, objective

Kuhn A physicist by training, not a philosopher. PhD at Harvard. Taught a “science for the humanities” course. Came to realise that “context of discovery” and “context of justification” aren’t distinct. Scientists work within a particular intellectual framework www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientific-revolutions

Scientists are people too… www.wired.com/2012/01/scientists-are-people-too/

Normal science vs paradigm shifts “Normal science” operates within a particular paradigm - Much more than just the prevailing theory – defines working methods of those scientists in the field. Conservative http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/2012/03/applying-scientific-concepts-startups-idea/

Normal science vs paradigm shifts In “normal science”, if the experiment doesn’t work, the scientist assumes she has done something wrong. Her results don’t agree with the paradigm – therefore she’s wrong. Kuhn dismissive of Popper’s falsification thesis

Normal science vs paradigm shifts From the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition: "Normal science does not aim at novelty but at clearing up the status quo. It tends to discover what it expects to discover.” Ian Hacking

Paradigm shifts …but anomalies build up. - Trigger “crisis of confidence” - Revolution. - Paradigm shift. - Major shift – “step change” in science, rather than incremental progress (Perhaps most contentious of all) --values and beliefs of scientists key to acceptance of new paradigm

Paradigm shifts

Paradigm shifts .”.. crisis alone is not enough. There must also be a basis, though it need be neither rational nor ultimately correct, for faith in the particular candidate chosen. Something must make at least a few scientists feel that the new proposal is on the right track, and sometimes it is only personal and inarticulate aesthetic considerations that can do that.... ” Scientists driven by more than just rational consideration of the data and evidence. Peer pressure and “faith” important according to Kuhn.

Seeing is believing?

Incommensurability “The normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before” But in QM we have the correspondence principle. Similarly, we make sure that relativistic equations reduce to appropriate classical limit. http://3.sabideli.com/thomas-kuhn/thomas-kuhn-1.html

I would consider a career which involved politics Over my dead body. Disagree Perhaps. Possibly. Maybe. Agree This is what I want to do with my life.

Should scientific evidence always drive government policy?

So, should we leave politics to the politicians..?