appendix: planning for success: A REPLY TO PROFESSOR WISDOM
Professor J. O. Wisdom has kindly offered some critical observations on the foregoing discussion35. In his comments he agrees with me that applied science and technology are distinct, but for different reasons.
Since ‘reason’ may be either ‘criterion’ or ‘end,’ let me make it clear that I use a simple factual criterion to distinguish the two, and to a definite philosophical end. Consider the following inference: Corroboration (or confirmation or verification, or factual support, or agreement with experience) is important in technology; technology is identical with science; therefore, corroboration is important in science. The inference is valid; its conclusion is false; and its first premise is true; hence, the identification of science and technology is mistaken. This suffices for me; for those who do not agree that the conclusion is false, and even insist that it must be true because the two premises are true, for them different arguments might be of use. If they see that the identification of science and technology is erroneous independently of the theory of corroboration, then they might be more agreeable to reform their ideas of corroboration too.It is a simple matter of fact, I think, that applied scientists use high- powered theories, difficult mathematics, etc., to solve problems in a way not open to those less well versed in these theories and deductive techniques; technologists are not usually as theoretically high powered and do not work out patiently and carefully chains of deduction - they hire applied scientists for that - but they are high powered in different respects, in being more familiar with technological situations, facts, problems, tasks, etc., from the availability and specific merits and defects of raw materials, to storage, to marketability. My example of a technologist and his work was Edison and his building of an electric street-lighting system; this involved, inter alia, invention, applied science, organization of implementation, economics, and even corporation law.
When it came to applied science, Edison used an applied scientist - Upton - to make the calculations. Whether the results of the calculation were correct was not Upton’s concern but Edison’s - as long as the deductions were valid, of course. Applied scientists do not usually wear lab coats (except perhaps for the sake of prestige) as do experimental scientists and technicians - including engineers and inventors. When the New York electric system was inaugurated, Edsion was there, tailcoat and all. Soon troubles ensued, and he quickly tried to straighten them out. In no time, he looked as if he were wearing the previous year’s overalls. Excitement of this kind may take place in technology and in experimental science; excitement in theoretical science and in applied science is very different.Since Wisdom kindly clarifies my views, I wish to take leave to clarify his clarification on two points: success and scientific success. I have no objection to success, but only to success philosophy, to the view of success as the measure of worth. The better the society and the more favorable the circumstances, the more likely, perhaps, that success and worth would go hand in hand; that is the most one could reasonably say. Anyway, our society is not that just; not as yet, at least.
As to scientific success, I dislike the idea that it can be generated by a formula or an algorism, and I dislike the idea that it can be assessed by a formula. I have given an example of a formula pertaining to performing both tasks - Laplace’s - and I have given an example for a formula pertaining to performing only the second task but not the first task - the Whewell-Popper formula as generally understood. I am not clear whether this point of mine is correctly presented by Wisdom.
The formula for corroboration which is not an algorism is the Whewell- Popper formula: A theory is corroborated if, and only if, after it has been invented and shown to explain the puzzling phenomena it was put to serve, it has been tested in an attempt to refute it, and that attempt has thus far failed to refute it.
I gave an example of how the Whewell-Popper formula would be misused as a measure of Einstein’s worth because it would make Einstein’s worth depend on luck concerning matters entirely beyond his control, such as the Eddington experiment. Wisdom shows quite clearly - and in my view correctly - that this does not apply to other factors, which were very much within Einstein’s control, such as knowledge of experimental results attained prior to his studies. True, Einstein was encouraged by his ability to explain the motion of the perihelion of Mercury; this is irrelevant to my criticism of the use of the Whewell-Popper formula as a measure of worth, as it merely purports to show that in some cases such a use of the formula is not as objectionable. Also Wisdom is mistaken here on a technicality. Both Whewell and Popper would not consider the Mercury perihelion motion a corroboration, but they would consider Eddington’s experiment a corroboration.
Wisdom fears, incidentally, that if a theory is refuted at the first test it will not be tested further, and so experiments in agreement with it might not be discovered. Perhaps. Also, let me add, if a theory is not refuted at first test, then possibly it will not be tested further and refuted - sometimes even with premature implementation, leading to refutations descending on us as catastrophes. There are four logical possibilities here (early corroborations or refutations giving or not giving false impressions), and there exist historical examples conforming to each of them. So arguments here go neither way, except, perhaps, in some limited historical contexts. But, as we are concerned here neither with history nor with psychology, arguments go neither way. My view that qua corroboration, corroboration cannot play any role in science was drawn from Popper’s philosophy. A critic may show that my reasoning was faulty or that Popper’s philosophy is false; if he denies either possibility he is no critic of my view.
But Wisdom is right in claiming that we do wish to know both the facts which agree with a given theory and those which do not.
This is because we wish to know how much a theory explains; and the more it explains some puzzles, the better. Now suppose that we go back two or three centuries and find there a theory which explains a phenomenon discovered one or two centuries ago by one who had no knowledge of that theory; and suppose, further, that the phenomenon is not problematic today. Then, the present discovery that one old fact agrees with a somewhat older theory is of no interest. Why? Popper would say, because no one intended to refute that theory by that experiment, and so it is no corroboration. Scholars have been puzzled by Popper’s stress on intention, and not without reason. I think intentions as such need not matter, certainly not the sincerity of the attempt to refute, which regrettably Popper stresses so much. But intentions may enter when they are more objective, such as the desire to solve certain problems. When we wish to know how much a theory explains, and wish it to explain much, surely a corroborating experiment does that. When we wish to find, if a theory is false, that it is false, then corroborations will not do but refutations will. No one wants his partner to cheat him; but some people want to know if their partners cheat them, when, and how they cheat them. Some do not want such information even if it is true, and I tend to feel like them. But I do want to know where my theories went wrong if they are not the absolute truth. It all depends on what we are after.And if we are after solutions to certain problems and we have a sure method of solving them, we shall, of course, indorse this method; even if the method is only partially successful (in any sense) we shall indorse it. To speak against success here is folly. But suppose all our problems were easily solved and life were deprived of all challenge. Paradoxically, success would become failure by excess. The literature on the poor rich is maudlin and vulgar, but there is a kernel of truth in it.
When we learn to operate a machine or an algorism we may feel challenged, but when we master it we cannot enjoy a life consisting chiefly of operating it, no matter how successful the operation is in terms of economic and social standings or in any other terms.
This is a psychological truth concerning youngsters and adults, humans and even some other animals.If we feel challenged when we learn to operate a machine or an algorism, but not when operating it, then such a progress is not mechanical or algoristic. If so, how is it that practically everyone learns to operate the algorism in the same way? We all learn our mother tongue to an incredible uniformity. Einstein’s theory, being non-formal, may be open to myriads of understandings or misunderstandings. Yet most men of science understand it in one, two, or three standard interpretations. I think this is an interesting fact. It may have to do with the fact that Einstein’s theory came primarily to answer some questions, and that somehow questions have a logic of their own which is capable of directing people again and again toward understanding neither by mere mechanics nor by mere luck and ingenuity which defy generalization. My difficulty is exactly this. Suppose that statements about intuition can be generalized like statements about other operations. Then intuition may feel different from memorizing by rote, but it is not: Then, we can have a sort of intellectual progress by rote, a sort of science-making machine. If intuition is so unique, if we have no science-making machine, how is it that science progresses so steadily? This question seems to be of some significance in the philosophy of technology: As Dr. Jarvie has pointed out, the American space program is based on an estimated rate of technological progress. This optimism strikes me as most incredible. Can we explain it?
NOTES
1 See Chapter 2 above, especially the appendix.
2 K. R. Popper, ‘Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge’, Contemporary British Philosophy (ed. by H. D. Lewis), London 1956, pp. 355-88; and Conjectures and Refutations, London and New York 1962, pp. 97-119. See also my ‘Duhem versus Galileo’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 8 (1957), 237-48.
3 Matthew Josephson, Edison (paperbound ed., New York 1959), pp. ix-xi.
4 See my Towards an Historiography of Science, Beiheft 2, History and Theory, The Hague 1963; facsimile reprint, Weslyan U. P., 1967, pp. 8,17,42-48,84,85, 86,105,106.
5 Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace, ‘Application of the Calculus of Probabilities to Moral Philosophy’, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (paperbound ed., New York 1951), chapter X.
6 Josephson, Edison, p. 198.
7 Ibid., p. 216.
8 Rudolf Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability (2d ed.), Chicago 1962, p. 193.
9 ‘A General Estimation Function’ in ibid., sec. 99 ff. See also his ‘On Inductive Logic’, Philosophy of Science 12 (1945), sec. 10 (reprinted in Probability Confirmation, and Simplicity (ed. by M. H. Foster and M. L. Martin), New York 1966). Cf. Popper, ‘On Carnap’s Version of Laplace’s Rule of Succession’, Mind 71 (1962), 69-73; and my ‘Analogies as Generalizations’, Philosophy of Science 31 (1964), 351-56.
10 J. Wolfowitz, ‘Abraham Wald’, Annals of Mathematical Statistics 33 (1952), 9: “... was put on the restricted category and made available only to authorized recipients. Wald chafed greatly under this restriction.” Cf. Statistical Research Group, Columbia University, Selected Techniques of Statistical Analysis for Social and Industrial Research and Production Management, New York 1947, pp. viii-ix.
11 William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, London 1840, Vol. II, Part 2, Book XI, chap, i, secs. 6, 10; chap, v, secs. 7, 8 (about testing), 10 (about techniques of testing: predictions), 11 (about the stringency of the test: new prediction), 12, 13 (correlating simplicity and testability, so to speak); chap, vi, sec. 12 (non-twf Aocness). See also his History of the Inductive Sciences 3d ed.; London 1843, Vol. I, Book VII, ‘The Discovery of Neptune’: “Thus to predict unknown facts found afterwards to be true, is, as I have said, a confirmation of a theory which in impressiveness and value goes beyond any known explanation of known facts.” And such confirmation, he says, took place only a few times in the whole history of man.
12 Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York 1959, chap, x and New Appendix *ix.
13 Josephson, Edison, p. 198.
14 See Chapter 2 for a detailed discussion of this statement.
15 Michael Polanyi, Pure and Applied Science and Their Appropriate Forms of Organization, Society for Freedom in Science, Occasional Pamphlet No. 14 Oxford, December 1953, p. 2. See also p. 9.
16 For Polanyi, see ibid., p. 6, on the ability of the competitive system to cope with technological novelties. See also his Personal Knowledge, paperbound ed.; New York 1964, p. 177 n. See n. 17 below for the exactly opposite view. For the Selden case, see William Greenleaf, Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent, Detroit 1961, and the review of that volume by John B. Rae in Technology and Culture 11 (1961), 289. For Edison’s ‘My 40 years of Litigations’ Literary Digest (Sept. 13, 1913), see Josephson, Edison, pp. 354-60, and his Index article ‘Patent Infringement.’
17 For the Baconian tradition, see my Historiography (n. 4 above), pp. 4-6,15, 60-66, 81. For the Malinowski tradition, see Ian C. Jarvie, The Revolution in Anthropology London and New York 1964, pp. 1-7, and his Index article ‘Fieldwork’.
A. P. Usher, A History of Mechanical Invention, rev. ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1954; paperbound ed., Boston 1959, p. 68: “Cultural achievement is a social accomplishment based upon the accumulation of many small acts of insight of individuals. The massiveness of this social process was long ignored or misunderstood....A conspicuous result of this disposition to put a part for the whole was the frequency of bitter controversies over claims of various inventors to a particular invention.... These disputes all rest on the false assumption that the achievement was so simple and specific that it could properly be identified with the work of a single person at a single moment.” A clearer and sharper statement is quoted from seminar notes by Thomas A. Smith in his enthusiastic review of Usher’s volume, in Technology and Culture, 11 (1961), 36. “The concept of heroes and men of genius,” says Usher according to Smith’s record, “are literary and cult devices that simplify the historical record.” See also paperbound edition, p. vii. For my view of the partial justice of such wild claims, see my Historiography (n. 4 above), pp. 31-33.
18 Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, paperbound ed.; Princeton, N.J. 1962, Part 1, chap, ii; Part 2, chap, iii, and Appendix ‘The Value of Physical Theory’.
19 E. Mach, ‘The Economical Nature of Physical Research’, Popular Scientific Lectures, La Salle, Ill., 1907, chap, xiii; his The Science of Mechanics, paperbound ed.; La Salle, Ill. 1960, chap, iv, sec. 4.
20 Popper, ‘Three Views’ (see n. 2 above), sec. 5: ‘Criticism of the Instrumentalist View’.
21 Erik H. Erikson, ‘Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt’, Childhood and Society, 2d ed.; New York 1963, chap, vii, sec. 2, p. 253; Allen Wheelis, The Quest for Identity, New York 1958, chap vi, esp. pp. 183, 199, 201, 250.
22 Popper, Conjectures, chap, x, sec. 23, and note on p. 248.
23 J. M. Keynes, Treatise on Probability, Cambridge 1921, chap, xxiii, esp. p. 271.
24 Popper, Conjectures, p. 217: “I assert that we know what a good scientific theory should be like, and - even before it has been tested - what kind of theory would be better still, provided it passes certain crucial tests.” And on p. 242, “The second requirement ensures that....” Meanwhile this claim - Popper’s theory of verisimilitude - has been amply refuted.
25 Popper, ‘The Aim of Science’, Ratio 1 (1957), 24-35. See also my ‘Between Micro and Macro*, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 14 (1963).
26 See my ‘Sensationalism*, above, for a detailed discussion of this statement.
27 Popper, ‘Naturgesetze und Wirklichkeit’, in Gesetz und Wirklichkeit (ed. by S. Moser), Innsbruck 1949, pp. 43-60, esp. pp. 53ff. English translation in his Objective Knowledge, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972, pp. 341-361, 352-3.
28 H. Stafford Hatfield, The Inventor and His World, 1933; Pelican ed., 1948, pp. Ill, 133, 134, 151, et passim.
29 Josephson, Edison, chap, x, esp. p. 194. Cf. Usher, A History of Mechanical Invention, pp. 72-77 and 401-6.
30 Helmut Gemsheim, in collaboration with Alison Gemsheim, The History of Photography from the Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura in the Eleventh Century up to 1914, Oxford 1955.
31 Ibid., p. 81.
32 Helmut and Alison Gemsheim, L. J. M. Daguerre: A History of the Diorama and the
Daguerreotype, London 1955; American ed., published under the title L. M. J. Daguerre, the World's First Photographer, Cleveland, 1956.
33 Ruth Mitchell, My Brother Bill: The Life of General “Billy” Mitchell, with an Introduction by Gerald W. Johnson, New York 1953, pp. 12-13: “There was a moment when he seemed to be entirely right. But events in Korea, where our separate airforce has accomplished nothing... prove... But even if he had been wholly wrong...If the Korean war offers new evidence in one direction then, surely, the six-day war goes in the other direction.
34 Noam Chomsky, ‘Explanatory Models in Linguistics’, in Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science (ed. by E. Nagel, P. Suppes, and A. Tarski), Proceedings of the 1960 International Congress, Stanford, Calif. 1962, pp. 528-50.
35 J. O. Wisdom’s comments are printed in Technology and Culture 7, No. 3 (Summer 1966), 348-70. So is Professor Jarvie’s paper referred to in the end of this chapter.