Does Science Need Philosophy?

To prepare for Lawrence Krauss's visit to Philadelphia on Monday, March 20th, I figured we could review the debate within the skeptic community over the value of philosophy, specifically whether or not science needs philosophy. Krauss and several other prominent members of the scientific & skeptic communities like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Jerry Coyen & Bill Nye have publicly bashed philosophy as useless word games and argued science is all we need to solve any problems that humanity faces.

However, several other prominent members of the skeptic community like Daniel Dennett & Massimo Pigliucci, have pushed back, along with philosophers of science like David Albert & Jim Holt, arguing that we can't conduct scientific inquiries without a solid foundation in philosophy, specifically logic & epistemology, and that science alone cannot adequately address questions where human values must be factored in -- such as ethics & politics.

I've done my best to break down these debates into 4 separate subtopics which you can see below. I've include some video clips under each section that help illustrate the main points. I hope they're more accessible to our members than some of the longer, denser articles we've tried to use in the past. If you're pressed for time & can't afford to watch all 8 videos, just try to watch one from each section.

• NOTE: If you're interested in learning more, I dug up a ton of articles on this topic which I've listed in our meetup's discussion section: https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Skeptics/messages/boards/thread/50617499

DOES PHILOSOPHY OVEREMPHASIZE "SEMANTICS" (I.E. THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE & MEANING)?

1. George Dvorsky, "Neil DeGrasse Tyson Slammed for Dismissing Philosophy"

(This includes an excerpt of Tyson's remarks from the Nerdist podcast and Massimo Pigliucci's response.)

http://io9.gizmodo.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-slammed-for-dismissing-philosophy-a-1575178224

2. Damon Linker, "Why Neil deGrasse Tyson is a Philistine"

http://theweek.com/articles/447197/why-neil-degrasse-tyson-philistine

• For an example of how semantics matters in science, see Jonathan MS Pearce's article, "Species Do Not 'Exist': Evolution, Sand Dunes and the Sorites Paradox"

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2017/01/07/species-not-exist-evolution-sand-dunes-sorites-paradox/

• Another example of the importance of semantics for science is the way in which arguments over the "unit of selection" among evolutionary biologists depended on different meanings they attributed to that term - see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Units and Levels of Selection - Conclusion"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/selection-units/#4

DOES PHILOSOPHY OVEREMPHASIZE RADICAL SKEPTICISM & PURE RATIONALISM INSTEAD OF SCIENTIFIC REALISM & EMPIRICISM?

3. Bill Nye, "Does Science Have All the Answers or Should We Do Philosophy Too?" (3:41 minutes)

http://bigthink.com/videos/bill-nye-on-philosophy

4. Josh Pelton, "Science vs. Philosophy: An Ancient (Non-)Debate" (8:00 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CGQrt_5n60

• For a more in-depth response to Nye, see Nick Halme's essay, "Bill Nye — Not a Philosophical Guy (or why Paul Feyerabend is Important)"

https://medium.com/eruditional-a-blog/bill-nye-not-a-philosophical-guy-or-why-paul-feyerabend-is-important-3b7704f927aa#.dq8wi2637

DOES THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE SHOW ANY IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PHILOSOPHERS? DID ANY MAJOR SCIENTISTS OF THE PAST CONSIDER THEMSELVES PHILOSOPHERS?

5. Lewis Wolpert & Joe Boswell, "Science vs. Philosophy" (14:49 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQ0o3HBOoU

• Wolpert concedes that David Hume is one exception to his statement that philosophers have contributed nothing to science, and they briefly discuss Thales, Aristotle & Newton, but their conversation overlooks several other obvious examples of polymaths that made contributions to both disciplines: Avicenna, Roger Bacon, William of Ockham, Copernicus, Gottfried Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes, andKurt Godel.

DO MODERN SCIENTISTS NEED HELP FROM PHILOSOPHERS OF SCIENCE TO RESOLVE THEORETICAL PROBLEMS?

6. Ross Anderson interviews Lawrence Krauss, "Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?" (article)
   https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/

7. Neil Turok, David Albert & Jim Holt with host Steve Paulson, "The Origins of the Universe: Why is There Something Rather than Nothing?" (6:04 minutes)
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkSKq4B7hD0

• For a more in-depth reply to Krauss, see Victor Stenger, James A. Linday & Peter Boghossian's article, "Physicists are Philosophers, Too"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-are-philosophers-too/