Doctoral Program and Advanced Degree in Sustainable Energy Systems
Doctoral Program in Mechanical Engineering
Doctoral Program in Environmental Engineering
Ecological Economics
Lecture 02
A Refresher on the Philosphy of Science
https://fenix.ist.utl.pt/disciplinas/ee/2010-2011/2-semestre
Tiago Domingos
Assistant Professor
Environment and Energy Scientific Area
Department of Mechanical Engineering
tdomingos@ist.utl.pt
A Refresher on the Philosophy of Science I
• Inductivism
– “All swans are white”
– The induction problem: black swans
• Falsificationism (Karl Popper)
– Assymetry in truth:
• I can prove that “All swans are white” is false, but I cannot prove
that it is true
• I can prove that “Some swans are black” is true, but I cannot prove
that it is false
– The assymetry is in “all” (universal quantifier) vs. “some”
(existential quantifier)
– Falsifiability provides a criterion for demarcation between
science and non-science
Chalmers, A. F. (1999). What is this thing called science? (3rd. ed.) Open University Press, Buckingham.
[most of the book is available on Google Books]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
A Refresher on the Philosophy of Science II
• Kuhn’s paradigms
– Paradigms: normal science (problem solving)
– Revolutions: incommensurability
• Lakatos’s research programs
– Hard core
– Protective belt (auxiliary theory)
– Negative and positive heuristics
– ... so, theories are not just rejected based on specific “crucial”
experiments
• e.g.: Michelson-Morley experiment
Chalmers, A. F. (1999). What is this thing called science? (3rd. ed.) Open University Press, Buckingham.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn
Uncertainty
Knowns
Deterministic
problems
Known
unknowns
Stochastic problems
(risk)
Unknown
unknowns
True uncertainty
• Dealing with uncertainty
– Adaptive management
http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/adaptive_management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit
– Resilience
http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/resilience
– Precautionary principle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
Ciência pós-normal
(Funtowicz e Ravetz)
Elevada
Ciência
pós-normal
Importância
Consultoria
Ciência
aplicada
Baixa
Elevada
Incerteza