IBP Psychology and Science

Chapter 9: Theories as structures II: Research Programs

Introducing Lakatos:

• Although an avid supporter of Popper’s approach to science, Lakatos came to realise some of the difficulties that faced Popper’s falsificationism
• Like Kuhn, Lakatos saw the merit in portraying scientific activity as taking place in a framework, and coined the phrase ‘research program’ to name what were, in a sense, Lakatos’s alternatives to Kuhn’s paradigms.

Lakatos’ research programs:

• To have a reliable measure of the progress of science, Lakatos suggested that some parts of science, laws and principles, are more basic than others
• Some laws are so fundamental that they come close to being the defining feature of a science. As such, they are not to be blamed for any apparent failure. Rather, the blame is to be placed on the less fundamental components.
• Scientists can seek to solve problems by modifying the more peripheral assumptions as they see fit
• The fundamental principles are the hard core - the defining characteristic of a research program.
• Going from the hard core, we need supplementary assumptions that flesh the program out, to the point that we can make definite predictions.
  • These assumptions both supplement the hard core and they underlie the initial conditions used to specify particular situations and theories, presupposed in the statements of observations and experimental results. So, in a way, these assumptions are the methods Kuhn’s paradigms include, too
  • Falsifications are to be attributed to these assumptions, not the hard core
• The protective belt: sum of the additional hypotheses supplementing the hard core
• We modify the assumptions to improve the match between the predictions of the program and the results of observation and experiment.
• Guidelines for work are divided between negative and positive heuristics
  • Negative heuristics are what scientists are advised not to do
  • The positive heuristic is what a scientist is supposed to do
• A research program has to lead to novel predictions that are confirmed, and it has to offer a true program of research, as in, the methods, techniques, all that; it should guide future research
• For Lakatos, a scientific revolution is then the replacement of a degenerative research program by a progressive one
  • Degenerative program: loses its coherence and/or fails to provide confirmed novel predictions.

Methodology within a program and the comparison of programs:

• Modifications to the protective belt are okay as long as they’re not ad hoc: they must be independently testable
• The more testable moves a modification allows, the better. It increases the chance of success
• Besides ad hoc tests, Lakatos also ruled out any moves that go away from the hard core. This would destroy the program’s coherence
• We have to adjust Lakatos’ methodology: A program is progressive to the extent that it makes natural, as opposed to novel, predictions that are confirmed, where ‘natural’ stands opposed to ‘contrived’ or ‘ad hoc’.

Problems with Lakatos’ methodology:

• Are there such things as ‘hard cores’ serving to identify research programs to be found in the history of science? Counter evidence comes from the extent to which scientists do on occasions attempt to solve problems by adjusting the fundamentals of the theories or programs in which they work
• “The hard core is unfalsifiable by the methodological decisions of its protagonists”. But do these decisions exist?
• Lakatos himself wrote that he would give criteria for progression and stagnation/degeneration within a program, as well as rules for the elimination of research programs, but his methodology was never able to do this. Lakatos conceded/admitted that his methodology could not diagnose current theories as non-scientific, but could only make judgements in retrospect, with historical hindsight

Resources:

What is This Thing Called Science 4^th Edition (CHALMERS)