Scientific Method Challenges: Feyerabend, Popper, and the Physics Crisis

Scientific Hypothesis Formulation and Feyerabend's View

A hypothesis is an assumption about what happens in the world. The scientific method does not establish how a scenario arises or how it occurs to the scientist. In the formulation of hypotheses, factors come into play that may seem unscientific:

• Imagination
• Invention
• Chance
• Luck

Paul Feyerabend extends the influence of the imagination to all scientific procedure. He argues that the revolutionary discoveries of modern science are made possible by the freedom and spontaneity of scientific activity. To constrain scientific activity to a series of fixed steps makes science rather dogmatic and sterile. Feyerabend argues it is an illusion to think that these scientific discoveries are the result of a particular method, presenting the concept of "all or nothing."

Testing Hypotheses: Verification vs. Falsification

The testing of hypotheses in the hypothetical-deductive method is as problematic as it was in the inductive method. A hypothesis is typically tested through two main approaches:

Verification (Confirmation)

This involves checking the truth of a hypothesis. We observe whether what the hypothesis predicts actually occurs. If so, it is confirmed by the inductive method, though this only denotes probability, not absolute truth.

Falsification (Karl Popper)

Proposed by Karl Popper, falsification involves testing hypotheses using facts designed to prove them false. As long as contradictory facts are not found, the hypothesis is provisionally considered true. If it is falsified, it is rejected.

When a hypothesis has been tested and could not be falsified, it can be considered a scientific law and accepted provisionally. According to falsificationism, scientific laws are not characterized by being undoubtedly true, but by virtue of being falsifiable or refutable. That is, it must be possible to derive risky predictions that expose the law to the possibility of error.

The Crisis of Classical Physics (Late 19th Century)

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, science, particularly in the field of physics, went through a huge crisis. This crisis would only be resolved with the establishment of a new scientific paradigm—that is, a set of new theories and all that they entail.

The crisis appeared as a consequence of the enormous development of physical knowledge that occurred in the nineteenth century. This massive development led to the possibility of investigating areas that were previously non-existent and observing new phenomena. Consequently, problems arose for which classical physics had no valid answer.

Classical physics was in serious crisis, unable to explain these new phenomena, until Albert Einstein published the Theory of Relativity. This work, affirming the constancy of the speed of light, led to the acceptance of the new scientific paradigm and the eventual overcoming of this crisis.