Royal Society Medawar Lecture
The truth about science
| Topic: | The Royal Society Medawar Lecture 2004 |
|---|---|
| Speaker: | Professor Peter Lipton University of Cambridge |
| Date and time: | Tuesday 28 September 2004 at 6pm |
| Location: | Powell Lecture Theatre, H.H.Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL |
Evidence for a scientific theory is never conclusive. This raises a number of questions. First, what then is the relationship between theory and data? Second, is science in the truth business, or should we understand its aims in some other way? Third, is the case for saying that science is revealing the truth about a largely unobservable reality made out by the striking predictive successes of some of our best theories? Or is it undermined by a long history of theories that succeeded for a time but which are now known to be fundamentally mistaken?
Peter Lipton is the Hans Rausing Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University and a Fellow of King's College. He is a philosopher interested in how science works and what it achieves. A new edition of his book "Inference to the Best Explanation" was published in March.
Evidence for a scientific theory is never conclusive. This raises a number of questions. First, what then is the relationship between theory and data? Second, is science in the truth business, or should we understand its aims in some other way? Third, is the case for saying that science is revealing the truth about a largely unobservable reality made out by the striking predictive successes of some of our best theories? Or is it undermined by a long history of theories that succeeded for a time but which are now known to be fundamentally mistaken?
Peter Lipton is the Hans Rausing Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University and a Fellow of King's College. He is a philosopher interested in how science works and what it achieves. A new edition of his book "Inference to the Best Explanation" was published in March.
Admission Free - no ticket or advance booking required.
For more information contact:
Professor Alexander Bird, Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol,
9 Woodland Road, Bristol. BS8 1TB.
Tel: 0117 928 7826