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Old 06-19-2008, 05:45 PM   #102 (permalink)
xepherys
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What is Lakatos's theory about when one theory should supercede another? In fact, Lakatos does not provide such a criterion. Not even when one research program is degenerating and another is progressive does Lakatos say that scientists do or should only work on the progressive one, because like the stock-market, they may change their status over time.

It is not irrational for a scientist to work on a young research programme if she thinks it shows potential. Nor is it irrational for a scientist to stick with an old programme in the hope of making it progressive. Thus, Lakatos appears to agree with Kuhn that theory change is a rather fuzzy phenomenon. But he does insist that it depends on the assessment of objective facts--the future progressiveness or degeneration of research programs. The decision of scientists, however, must rely of their subjective predictions of the future course of science. Unlike Kuhn, Lakatos does not think that the uncertainty makes these decisions irrational.
Okay, let me restate a few things. I've already stated (in this thread I believe) that I feel a good scientist understand that he doesn't understand everything. There is ALWAYS room to question, precisely because you never know when something relevant and substantially different may come up.

HOWEVER, some things are, in fact, fact. We know that gravitation exists. We know not the cause of the effect, but we can verify the effect time and time again. Gravity is a fact. When a mathematical principle is created to stand it up, this becomes scientific law. It is both universally provable, and mathematically describable. You can have something that is mathematically describable, but NOT universally provable (say relativity) and hence a theory is born.

Why is the Theory of Relativity still a theory? Well, let's take it apart. You have general and special relativity, yes? Inside of general relativity, you have time dilation (or a form of it, I think there are more than one) that has been experimentally proven. You also have Rotational Frame Dragging, which has NOT been proven, and experiments run today to study it such as Gravity Probe B. Since it remains unproven in reality, though "proven" mathematically, it is not a fact or law but a theory.
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