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2 cent's worth from me. (Hi everyone, first time I've posted)
The problem with some philosophy of science is that it seems to fail to recognise that science is fundamentally a practical activity. Scientists go out and look at actual events in the real world and try to come up with descriptions and models of these events. Even a theoretical physicist is really engaged in this activity.
So a philosophy of science is good and useful where it addresses things like scientific ethics, or the difference between models and reality, or why the scientific method works.
Where it stops being good and useful (to science at any rate) is when philosophers (or people with a brief undergraduate exposure to philosophy) stop treating science as a practical activity and require it to be a perfect and unassailable description of the Truth. Typically this seems to involve things like:
- expecting science to 'prove' things like maths does (which fails to understand what mathematical proof is)
- expecting science to demonstrate that there is an external reality (science, like everyone else, is simply satisfied that there is one)
- expecting that science never gets things wrong (a large part of the point of science is getting things wrong).
Ulitimately, the test of science is whether it works, not whether philosophers are satisfied with it. I'd suggest that the best test of science is its child (who is often mistaken for science itself), technology. When the planes stay up in the air, we know our science is mostly right.
Dave
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