SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION 07/12/2018

 Science, like other human activities, is one response to our need to understand the world.

 One of the most important aims of science is to try and explain what happens in the world
around us. Sometimes we seek explanations for practical ends.

 Modern science is successful in its aim of supplying explanations.

BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION?

WHAT EXACTLY DOES IT MEAN TO SAY THAT A PHENOMENON CAN BE `EXPLAINED' BY SCIENCE?

 A famous account of scientific explanation put forward in the 1950’s by the American
Philosopher Carl Gustav Hempel.

 German-born U.S. Philosopher who was one of the leaders of the Berlin school of Logical
Positivism.

 The group viewed the task of science as that of showing phenomena to be the
consequence of unbroken laws. He emigrated to the USA in 1937 because of Nazism.
With Paul Oppenheim, he published an account of the deductive- Nomological
explanation.

 In this model, the explanation of a fact is reduced to a logical relationship between

statements: the explanandum is a consequence of the explanans. This is a common
method of logical positivism.

 Pragmatic aspects of explanation are not taken into consideration. Another feature is
that an explanation requires scientific laws; facts are explained when they are subsumed
under laws.

 Hempel's account is known as the covering law model of explanation.

HEMPEL'S COVERING LAW MODEL OF EXPLANATION

 Scientific Explanations are usually given in response to what he called 'explanation-seeking why
questions'.
These are questions such as `Why is the earth not perfectly spherical?', `Why do women live
longer than men:', and the like - they are demands for explanation.

 To give a scientific explanation is thus to

 Hempel suggested that scientific explanations typically have the logical structure of an argument
Example: Set of premises followed by a conclusion.
-The conclusion states that the phenomenon that needs explaining actually occurs, and
the premises tell us why the conclusion is true.

 Hempel's answer to the problem was three-fold:

1. the premises should entail the conclusion i.e. the argument should be a deductive one.
2. the premises should all be true.

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3. the premises should consist of at least one general law (“laws of nature”).

 Hempel allowed that a scientific explanation could

 appeal to particular facts as well as general laws, but he held that at

 least one general law was always essential.

 So to explain a phenomenon, on Hempel's conception, is to show that its occurrence

 Follows deductively from a general law, perhaps supplemented by other laws and/or
particular facts, all of which must be true.

 Why the plant on my desk has died?

 Why Plant on My Desk Died?

Poor sunlight in my study

No sunlight reaching the plant

No Photosynthesis

Plant on my desk dies

 This explanation fits Hempel's model exactly.

 It explains the death of the plant by deducing it from two true laws –

1. that sunlight is necessary for photosynthesis, and that photosynthesis is necessary for
survival

2. and one particular fact - that the plant was not getting any sunlight.

Schematically, Hempel's model of explanation can be written as follows:

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General laws

Particular facts

 Phenomenon to be explained

 explanandum

The phenomenon to be explained

 explanans

The general laws and particular facts that do the explaining.

 The explanandum itself may be either a particular fact or a general law.

 Hempel's model is called the covering law model of explanation

 For according to the model, the essence of explanation is to show that the
phenomenon to be explained is `covered' by some general law of nature.

 A phenomenon is a consequence of a general law does in a sense take the

mystery out of it - it renders it more intelligible. And in fact, explanations do
often fit the pattern Hempel describes.

 Hempel's model explains that phenomenon is explained by showing that it had to be so, given
the laws of nature plus some additional facts.

EXPLANATION AND PREDICTION

 Explanation predicts phenomenon, if we hadn’t known about it.

 Converse is also true: Every reliable prediction is potentially an explanation.

 Example: Mountain Gorilla will extinct by 2020

 According to Hempel, the information they used to predict the gorillas' extinction before
it happened will serve to explain that same fact after it has happened.

 Explanation and Prediction are structurally symmetric

COUNTER EXAMPLES TO COVERING LAW

Type 1: Scientific Explanations that do not fit the covering law

• Model is too strict

• Excludes bona fide scientific explanations

Type 2: Cases that fit the covering law, but intuitively do not fit as genuine scientific explanations

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• Too Liberal

• Allows things that should be excluded

THE PROBLEM OF SYMMETRY

 Explanation
confirms covering
law pattern.

 The height of
flagpole is
deduced from the
length of shadow.

 But why is
flagpole 15 meters
high?? – Nothing
do with the length
of shadow

 The real explanation of why the flagpole is 15 meters high is presumably that a
carpenter deliberately made it so -- it has nothing to do with the length of'the shadow
that it casts.

 So Hempel’s model is too liberal

 Hence, Hempels model is too liberal, does not respect assymetry

THE PROBLEM OF IRRELEVANCE

Suppose a young child is in a hospital in a room full of pregnant women. The child notices that one
person in the room - who is a man called John - is not pregnant, and asks the doctor why not. The doctor

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replies: `John has been taking birth-control pills regularly for the last few years. People who take birth-
control pills regularly never become pregnant. 'T'herefore, John has not become pregnant'.

 Suppose, John actually takes birth control pills.

 Hence, John has not become pregnant.

(But this is not the correct explanation, John is male, he cannot be pregnant)

 Here,

• General Law is true

• Particular Fact is True

• But, because of this John is not pregnant – not a valid explanation.

 Covering law allows things to count as scientific explanation, which are intuitively not.

 Doctor’s explanation to child is irrelevant: John would not have been pregnant even if he had
not taken birth control pills.

EXPLANATION AND CAUSALITY

 Problems in Covering Law: Need for Alternative

• Some Philosophers favoured Causality

• Many times covering law is same as causality

• In some cases, its not.

Example: 20 mtr shadow does not explain why flagpole is 15 mtrs high.

 Accommodates asymmetric relations

– X causes Y, but Y does not Cause X

• Do not run the problem of irrelevance

• But it cannot be the whole story: H20 is Water

– This explanation is not causal

CAN SCIENCE EXPLAIN EVERYTHING?

No

Ex. Origin of Life

•No reason to think that it will be never explained.

Newtonian Science: Law of gravity is a fundamental principle

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– It cannot explain itself

– It may remain unexplained.

EXPLANATION AND REDUCTION

 Different disciplines of science explains different phenomenon.

• They are not in competition with each other

• They are not at par too

– Some are more fundamental than others. (Physics)

 Will physics be able to explain things that biology or economics explain?

• How can a science that studies entities that are ultimately physical not be reducible to physics?

– Answer: Multiple Realization

 Ashtrays of various kinds

• Ashtrays are multiply realized at physical level

• Psychology cannot be reduced to physics or chemistry (works for higher-level sciences)

– Physics cannot explain why nerve cells live longer than skin cells.

– Not all philosophers are happy about this

– But still a neat explanation of the autonomy of higher-level sciences, both from
physics and from each other.

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