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ChristianKl comments on Open thread, Nov. 02 - Nov. 08, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: MrMind 02 November 2015 10:07AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 09 November 2015 01:10:08AM 0 points [-]

How can a work on the history and philosophy of science be outdated?

Mainly 50 years of new history happened. People came up with concepts like "evidence-based medicine" and a bunch of concepts about how science is supposed to progress.

Philosophy is more likely to change, particularly as scientists respond to Kuhn, but largely, they didn’t.

After dealing a bit more with HPS (history and philosophy of science) I get the impression like logical positivism simple ignored the arguments made against it. The New Atheist crowd simply reject criticism of logical positivism as obstruce postmodernism but I never heard someone actually engage the kind of arguments that Kuhn makes.

After I wrote the post I found a lectures series by Hakob Barseghyan. He makes a lot of sense and yet, for some reason HPS isn't in popular culture. I don't understand why HPS doesn't get taught in high schools.

Comment author: Lumifer 09 November 2015 04:26:45PM 1 point [-]

People came up with concepts like "evidence-based medicine"

That's not a new concept. That's a straightforward application of the scientific method (and some common sense) to the area which stubbornly resisted and continues to resist it.

Comment author: ChristianKl 09 November 2015 07:56:07PM 0 points [-]

That's a straightforward application of the scientific method (and some common sense) to the area which stubbornly resisted and continues to resist it.

I think both Kuhn and Barseghyan would say that there isn't a single thing that's "the scientific method" and that believing in such a thing isn't defensible when you look at the history of science.