Overview

One of the most fundamental questions philosophy of science raises involves the problem of scientific realism, which asks us to think about the status of scientific claims. For instance, when your chemistry teacher talks about atoms, are these real entities (and what does that mean?) or are they just a linguistic model that’s a convenient way to refer to a set of observations?

Scientific Realism at its heart makes two claims:

1. Reality exists independently of our thoughts and observations.

2. Scientific claims about the world at least sometimes get it right; that is, they actually describe reality.

However, over time, three categories of objections have been raised:

1. Those that question the status of empiricism, particularly of unobservable objects;

 2. Those that question whether terms like “jade” or “gold” or “mammal” actually describe reality, or if they are just convenient constructs that may actually contribute to making a world;

3. And finally, what we might call the instrumental evasion (common to engineers) that suggests that there can never be an answer to this question and that it simply doesn’t matter. If I can accurately build a bridge and it doesn’t fall down, does it matter if my understanding of reality is accurate?

After watching the video in the video tab, use the discussion questions to talk discuss the following question: What are scientists talking about when they talk about science? Have the students think about whether it matters if science describes “reality” and how we would know.