The Trouble with Science by Robin Dunbar

Author:Robin Dunbar [Robin Dunbar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571265190
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Logical Mind

Strong inference is very much bound up with the processes of logical argument. In developing predictions to be tested, we normally make a series of inferences from a set of premises (or assumptions) based on some model or hypothesis about the way the world is. This requires that the logical processes of inference be rigorously accurate, for any sloppiness in the chain of inference will lead to inaccurate (even completely incorrect) predictions. More than anything else, it is perhaps the logical rigour with which scientific arguments are pursued that the man-in-the-street finds hardest to cope with. More often than not in the context of everyday discussions, the arguments we use are sloppily constructed. Conclusions do not follow from the premises, non sequiturs (in which statements are wholly unrelated to anything that has been said before) abound. The precision and powers of logic that a scientist applies (or at least tries to apply) often strike the layman as inhuman: the best scientists seem more like robotic calculating machines than real living people. Here is not the evil fiendishness of Mary Shelley’s Dr Frankenstein, but rather the cold emotionless logic of Star Trek’s Mr Spock, devoid of the human qualities of warmth and honest frailty.

That people find it difficult to think through the logical structure of arguments was recognized by Aristotle as long ago as the fourth century BC. To try to overcome this, he codified the rules of inference as a set of abstract syllogisms. Each syllogism consists of three propositions (two premises or assumptions and the conclusion that can be drawn from them). A particularly simple example might be:

Premise 1 All professors are human (All A are B)

Premise 2 All humans are mortal (All B are C)

Conclusion Hence all professors are mortal (·˙· All A are C)

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