NAME: __________________________________
Philosophy 160
Philosophy of Science
Prof. Stemwedel
Spring 2003
FINAL EXAM
This exam consists of 12 numbered pages (including this one).
Please write your name on each page in the space provided.
You are not permitted to consult any book in taking this exam.
You are permitted to consult the single page (8.5 by 11 inches, both sides) of notes you
prepared for the exam.
All of your answers should be written in the spaces provided in this exam.
You may write in pen or pencil; please write legibly!
Part
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
TOTAL
Possible
10
10
20
20
15
25
100
1
Earned
NAME: __________________________________
PART I
TRUE OR FALSE (2 points each)
Circle your answers to each of the following:
1. Longino claims that objective knowledge is the sort of thing an individual
scientist can achieve by following a certain set of rules or methods for observing
and reasoning about the world.
TRUE
FALSE
2. Hacking believes that microscopes and other tools don’t give us reason to believe
in the existence of entities like “dense bodies” in red blood cells.
TRUE
FALSE
3. Quine claims that it is possible to maintain a hypothesis in the face of any
possible experimental finding, provided you are willing to change enough of the
other beliefs in your web of knowledge.
TRUE
FALSE
4. Lakatos claims that a scientist is committed to try to falsify all the hypotheses of
her theory.
TRUE
FALSE
5. Van Fraassen says we shouldn’t believe the claims scientific theories make about
unobservables, since unobservable entities don’t exist.
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TRUE
FALSE
NAME: __________________________________
PART II
MULTIPLE CHOICE (2 points each)
Circle the best answer to each of the following:
1. The Strong Program in sociology of science holds that:
A. Scientific beliefs are objectively better than other kinds of beliefs.
B. True beliefs and false beliefs require different kinds of explanations.
C. All beliefs require the same sorts of explanations as to why they are
believable or not.
D. None of the above.
2. Naturalism holds that:
A. Philosophy of science ought to provide an independent justification for the
scientific method.
B. Scientific findings can be used as a resource to help answer philosophical
questions.
C. All philosophical questions ought to be replaced by scientific questions.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
3. Feyerabend thinks good empiricism requires:
A. Seriously investigating a number of different theories which aim to
account for the same phenomena.
B. Requiring a new theory to explain the success of the old theory it replaces.
C. Accepting well-confirmed theories and rejecting theories that are not wellconfirmed.
D. An appeal to facts which are theory-independent.
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NAME: __________________________________
4. In contrast to Kuhn’s picture of normal science, Laudan believes:
A. Scientists can only see the world through one theory or paradigm at a time.
B. Scientific theories are evaluated in terms of truth, not puzzle-solving.
C. Scientists are able to pursue theories that seem unlikely to be true.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
5. Maxwell thinks:
A. Anti-realism commits you to believing that things that cannot be observed
directly don’t exist.
B. There are no entities in scientific theories that are in principle
unobservable.
C. Only science itself can tell us what is observable.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
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NAME: __________________________________
PART III —FILL IN THE BLANKS (2 points each)
Fill in each blank with the word or phrase from the list at the right which best completes
the sentence.
1.
Lakatos claims that the basic unit of scientific
achievement is the ______________________,
which consists of a hard core, a protective belt, and a
heuristic.
crucial experiment
2.
________________ claims that every genuine test of
a theory is an attempt to falsify it.
research programme
3.
When testing hypotheses, Duhem says it is not
possible to conduct a(n) ______________________,
since we can never be sure we have listed all the
possibilities.
metaphysics
4.
Kuhn characterizes the activity of normal science as
____________________________ .
5.
Accounting for macroscopic gas laws in terms of
laws from the kinetic theory of gases would be an
example of a(n)
______________________________.
6.
7.
8.
9.
__________________________ is the branch of
philosophy dealing with what we can know and how
we can come to know it.
A(n) _________________________ claim is one
that is true or false just in virtue of the meanings of
the terms in it rather than due to additional facts
about the world.
The “ultimate argument” attempts to show that the
predictive success of our scientific theories compel
us to take a(n) _______________________ attitude
toward them.
Longino discusses _________________________ as
a practice scientists can use for transformative
interaction with each other in order to build more
reliable knowledge about the world.
10. Van Fraassen says Maxwell confuses unobservable
entities with ______________________ entities.
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puzzle solving
epistemology
synthetic
analytic
theoretical
realist
antirealist
Ruse
Popper
experimentation
peer review
inter-theoretic reduction
NAME: __________________________________
PART IV — SHORT ANSWER (5 points each)
For each of the following questions, answer in a few sentences:
1. The following is a version of the “ultimate argument” for scientific realism:
“It is undeniable that a true theory of the universe would have perfect
predictive power. Our current scientific theories have extraordinary
predictive power. It would be a miracle for them to be so powerful
accidentally, so our current scientific theories must be very close to the
truth.”
What is the flaw in the logic of this argument?
2. According to van Fraassen, it is possible to distinguish between observable and
unobservable entities. How does he define observables and unobservables? Which of
these categories would he put unicorns in, and why?
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NAME: __________________________________
3. Ptolemaic astronomy (which places the Earth at the center of the universe) and
Copernican astronomy (which places the Sun at the center of the universe) make identical
predictions about planetary motions observed from Earth. Give one reason for preferring
the Copernican system to the Ptolemaic system, and explain why this is, or isn’t, a good
scientific reason for choosing between the two.
4. Supporters of “Creation Science” frequently criticize evolutionary biology by
claiming that science demands proof and that there is only inconclusive evidence to
support evolution. Does this claim that evolution is “just a theory” work to strengthen the
scientific status of Creation Science? Why or why not?
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NAME: __________________________________
PART V — EVALUATING SCIENTIFIC REASONING (15 points)
In the mid-1800s, many pregnant women who entered Vienna General Hospital died of
“childbed fever” shortly after giving birth. The death rate from childbed fever was five
times higher in the ward where patients were treated by physicians than in the ward
where patients were seen only by midwives.
When patients at the hospital died, autopsies were conducted on the cadavers in the
hospital autopsy room. A physician at the hospital cut his finger with a scalpel that had
been used during an autopsy. Within days, he exhibited the symptoms of childbed fever
and died shortly thereafter.
Semmelweis, another doctor at the hospital hypothesized that childbed fever was
transmitted by way of “cadaveric matter”.
What evidence supports the hypothesis that childbed fever is caused by “cadaveric
matter”?
Given the difference in the rate of childbed fever among women treated by doctors and
women treated by midwives at the hospital, what difference might you expect to discover
in the activities of the doctors and midwives in the hospital?
Semmelweis offered a further hypothesis that having practitioners wash their hands and
arms in chlorinated lime water before examining patients would reduce the cases of
childbed fever. If this procedure had failed to reduce cases of childbed fever, what
should we conclude from this?
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NAME: __________________________________
PART VI (25 points)
Write an essay of 2-3 exam pages to respond to the following prompt:
Sir Arthur Eddington wrote:
An electron is no more (and no less) hypothetical than a star. Nowadays
we count electrons one by one in a Geiger counter, as we count the stars
one by one on a photographic plate. In what sense can an electron be
called more unobservable than a star? I am not sure whether I ought to
say that I have seen an electron; but I have just the same doubt whether I
have seen the star. If I have seen one, I have seen the other. I have seen a
small disc of light surrounded by refraction rings which has not the least
resemblance to what a star is supposed to be; but the name “star” is given
to the object in the physical world which some hundreds of years ago
started a chain of causation which has resulted in this particular lightpattern. Similarly, in a Wilson cloud chamber I have seen a trail not in the
least resembling what an electron is supposed to be; but the name
“electron” is to be given to the object in the physical world which has
caused this trail to appear. How can it possibly be maintained that a
hypothesis is introduced in the one case and not in the other?
Does Eddington give us compelling reasons to be scientific realists? Why or why not?
In answering this question, be sure to include each of the following:
1. An explanation of the difference between realist and anti-realist attitudes toward a
scientific theory. (Discussing van Fraassen’s preferred version of anti-realism
will be helpful here.)
2. An explanation of what observability and unobservability have to do with realism
and anti-realism.
3. An analysis of what observations of the sort Eddington discusses might be able to
tell us about a theory which makes claims about stars or electrons.
4. An evaluation of whether this sort of information can logically compel us to take
a realist (or an anti-realist) attitude toward a theory which makes claims about
stars and electrons.
5. Your view on whether it would be better to take a realist or an anti-realist attitude
toward a theory which makes claims about stars and electrons, and your reasons
for this judgment.
.
Begin your essay on the next page of the exam
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