1

Research: Theory, Method, Practice

Stefan Arnborg, KTH

Courses FD3001: 7.5hpDA2205: 3hp of 7.5

Examination: Presence on lectures with external lecturer

Homework: 2 papers: DA2205: 2 from list FDD3001: 2 from list, except 1 and 21: Self-presentation2: Press Release3: Grant Application4: Paper Analysis5: Fraud Investigation6: Proposal Review7: Media Event8: Self presentation and press release9: Elective (must be approved by me)

Norms of Academic Science:Merton 1942

• C communism (or communitarianism)• U universality: universal knowledge• D disinterestedness: no personal stakes(except

honour)• O originality: NEW knowledge• S scepticism: try to falsify

• Merton’s context: relation between power and scientist indictatorships (Hitler, Stalin). Border between society andscience demarcated.

Post-Academic Science:Ziman 2000

• P proprietarian ( IP, business opportunity)• L local: related to local network of stakeholders• A authoritarian: hierarchical control• C commissioned (researcher is ’consultant’)• E expert: role is problem-solver

• Ziman’s context: Universities are like anycorporations, and output directly economicallymeasurable. Globalization

• Etzkowitz: Triple Helix: Academy/Region/Industry

2

CUDOS, PLACE, or both?Fuller(2000) criticized the idea that an ancient CUDOS system was recently replaced by Mode 2 or PLACE or triple helix, since the two sets of norms have (almost) always co-existed, as they dotoday with occasional outburst of activity to ‘change the balance’.

EXAMPLE: Kaiser Wilhelm Institute,now Fraunhofer Institute.

What is Truth?• Plato: Rationalistic, Cave simile, observations unreliable. Cf Meno.• Aristotle: Deductive truth: What follows from true assumptions is true.

Whats opposite can be deductively refuted is true. (cf proof by contradiction,statistical hypothesis tests) Aristotle: Inductive truth: What regularly obtainsis true (cf statistical inference)

• Peirce: What a community of scholars eventually agrees upon is Truth.• Latour: Something is True if it cannot be resisted, tied into a network of

irresistible microsociological relations between humans, ideas and materialartefacts.(ANT)

Progress of Science• Accumulation of observations, experiments and

theories (Francis Bacon, Comté). Naive positivism.• Theories are prior to observations, the latter Confirm

(Carnap) or Falsify (Popper) theories. LogicalPositivism

• Scientific progress is revolutionary (Kuhn,Feyerabend). Paradigms, or ANYTHING GOES.

Kuhn: Paradigms in Science

• Normal Science: Exemplar to take after,filling in gaps, ’goldplating’

• Anomalies: Try to explain anomalies byinterpretation of experiments andobservations. No rejection of theory

• Crisis: Anomalies are serious enough toreject theory and force a new PARADIGM.

• Typically, a new paradigm is not universallybut only gradually accepted.

3

Feyerabend - Against MethodScience is an essentially anarchistic enterprise

The only principle that doesnot inhibit progress is:ANYTHING GOES

Hypotheses contradicting well-confirmed theories giveus evidence that cannot be obtained in other ways

If there is a driving force in science, it is aesthetics.

Hawthorne and Placebo• Clients of Healers & Homeopathists, subjects

in the ‘no-intervention’ groupcan also see positive changes

• Is this pseudoscience?(Kathy Sykes TV programmes)

• Brain’s reward system releasessignal substances that have thesame type of effect as drugs?

Paradigm shifts inmathematics?

• Environment: Computer and Biologychallenge. Internalized.

• Scientific Computing, SIMULATION• Stochastic computations (MCMC)• Neural and bioinspired computation?

This book argues thatconceptual metaphorplays a central,defining role inmathematicalideas within thecognitive unconscious-from arithmetic andalgebra to sets andlogic to infinity in allofits forms: transfinitenumbers, points atinfinity, infinitesimals,and so on.

4

Is Praxiteles’ work already in the marble?

NO: Structure of Science (and Truth) isthe outcome of a practice

Which claims can be resisted?Which can be made?Which allies can be brought in?Which links resist?

Scientific truth defined in centers of calculationand verified in galleries of a community of practiceextending through societyas an actor networkCallon, Latour ca 1985

Lyotard

• The post-modern condition:Commissioned work for MontrealEducation authority - prophetic

• Fight against concept of ’GrandNarrative’ as opposed to complex webof ’micro-narratives’

Goals in Research, sketch:

• Humanities: Understanding Phenomena• Social Sciences: Improve society• Natural Science: Predict outcome of

experiments• Mathematics:

1:Solve problems - prove theorems2:Create Landscape in which theoremscan be defined and proved.

Qualitative Research• Margaret Mead: Best known

(to American public)scientist before Einstein

• Coming of Age in Samoa,≈1925 - controversiessettled or not?

• Immersion, constructing

5

Three Inconvenient Germans• Karl Marx (1818-1883) Class,

Organization of Production, RevolutionFounder of latest state religions

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).Aesthetics revolutionized, existentialistand post-modernity icon

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1938),discoverer of the unconscious

Why Greek science??

• Well studied and documented• Greek classicism shapes our way of

seeing the world.• Greek society cruel: Slaves, Wars,

Racism,Oppression of women(i.e., like Europe)

Thales -585 Anaximander 611-547 Anaximenes -502 Pythagoras 570-508 Parmenides 510- Zenon 488- Empedokles 450 Herakleitos 540-480 Anaxagoras 500-428Herodotos 425 Protagoras 420 Demokritos 460-370 Sokrates 469-399, Antisthenes Platon 428-348 Aristarkos Aristoteles 384-322 Arkimedes -300 E Euklides Appolonius Epikureos 342-270Selevkos

Epiktetus 50-125 Poseidonius 100Hipparkos

Theory of Evolution

• First account by Anaximandros,including sketch of natural selection

• Based on mechanistic view, notIntelligent Design

• Restated by Empedocles• Rejected by Aristotle as implausible.

Teleological explanation. Importantparadim shift (in ’wrong’ direction).

6

Modern theory of Evolution

• Based on careful collection of supporting observations(many of which can also be found in Aristotle: Parts ofanimals)

• Refutable by age of earth (Kelvin could not knowabout heating by radioactivity ) and lack ofunderstanding of genetics (Mendel’s work had beenunnoticed)

• Still considered somewhat daring, but (almost) onlyremaining hypothesis.

Greek Astronomy

• Relied on Eastern knowledge (Persia, India,…)• Predict eclipses (Thales, 585 BC)• Sizes of earth, moon, the zodiac to within 1%• Size of sun : Aristarkos 180 times earth ->

Heliocentrism as a plausible model• Poseidonius (teacher of Cicero):

Size of sun 6000 tim es earth (50% low)Explanation of tidal water (sun, moon) -made possible tidal water tables

Greek Astronomy

• Relied on Eastern knowledge (Persia, India,…)• Predict eclipses (Thales, 585 BC)• Sizes of earth, moon, the zodiac to within 1%• Size of sun : Aristarkos 180 times earth ->

Heliocentrism as a plausible model• Poseidonius (teacher of Cicero):

Size of sun 6000 tim es earth (50% low)Explanation of tidal water (sun, moon) -made possible tidal water tables

Astronomy• Aristotle Hipparkus and Ptolemai geocentrists• Appolonius: Defined both conic sections and

the epicycle system.… and in the west?

• Copernicus: Sun might be the center because of its majesticappearance?

• However, predictions based on heliocentrism inferior• It took more than 100 years before Kepler saved the

heliocentric view by using Appolonius conic sections instead ofhis epicycles.If the heliocentricists had followed a scientific method, theyshould have rejected their hypothesis.

7

Tycho Brahe’s system• The moon and sun

circle around earth,but planets aroundthe sun

• Absence of stellarparallax indicatesgeocentrism

• Also convenientand safe wrt church

Atomism

• Not unique for Greek philosophers• Democrit, Leukippos, from observations of

life cycles and chemical processes• Epikuros combined it with an ethics of no

after-life, explicated in one of the greatantique works of literature, Lucretius ‘ DeRerum Natura’, On the Order of Nature.

The ‘Dark ages’• Greek science and literature survived in the Byzantine and

Muslim worlds• Applied to rational analysis of theological problems (Ibn Rushd,

Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun)• Grinding halt after destruction of Baghdad (1258) and conquest

of Constantinople (1453)• Translated to Latin from Greek and Arabic (Plato, Aristotle)• Aristotle surpasses Plato as ‘the Philosopher’,

treated as semi-god rather than human.• Scholasticism - fascinating, but not in line with course

Islamic Science• The first islamic law schools (ca 800)

developed the academic degreesystem and CV concept (Doctor’sdegree, promotion and hat) which weretaken over by Bologna and Padua, andstill exist

8

Islamic Scholars

• Ibn Sina (Avicenna), ca 1000, practicebased medicine (antibiotics, vaccines(inoculation).

• Ibn Rushd (Averroes), ca 1200,precursor of scholasticism, mixing‘axioms’ in the form of Quranstatements with observations, derivingnew truth by syllogism. Saved Aristotle.

Ibn Khaldun (ca 1360):Muqqadimah

• Politician, social scientist, historian, economist.• First statements of market theory, importance of

stable institutions, property right, stable currency• First scientific Marxist (without political program):

Power and wealth distribution depends on howproduction is organized

• ‘Anyone can have ideas, but only through words andlanguage can you convince’

Newton,(1642-1727)

1665 - Alchemy1666 - Calculus1667 - Fellow, Trinity College1669 - professor1682-4 Principia1689 - Parlamentarian1692 - Opticks1696 - Royal Mint1703 - Royal Society1733 - Daniel and Apocalypse

First modern or last ancient??

9

Cambridge Wranglers

-Created the math you studied:Green, Stokes, Macauly,Routh Maxwell, Larmor,Cunningham, Dirac…

-Competitive mathexamination aimed at rankingcandidates for fellowships --

-Appointments for life with noparticular duties -- oftenawarded at age 20-25