Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

Biblical, better, indeterminate, predictions, technology, sacrosanct, white, scholarship, universities, historical, testable, sun, realism, observations, falsifiability, corpus, same, relevant, scientific, repeatedly, guarantee, bearing, Bellarmine, inference, neutral, settling, realist, evidence, fallible, Galileo, bold, definitively, honors, pseudo, Popper, dispute, wrong, objective, premises

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two contrasts set                     scientific inquiries apart from other inquiries

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1. science and             pseudo science

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astronomy vs. astrology

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similar

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        same subject matter: what is in the sky

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pseudo-science inquiries look very much like scientific inquiries

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both gather                 evidence

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both make                       predictions

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dissimilar

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astronomy makes bold claims that are                 testable and falsifiable

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astrology makes vague claims that are not testable or falsifiable

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astronomy taught at                         universities

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2. science and non-science

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literary theory as non-science

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similar to science since it involves

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gathering evidence

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yield knowledge

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dissimilar

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science makes falsifiable claims

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the trial of               Galileo

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Galileo used a new                     technology to make observations of the heavens

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                    Bellarmine appealed to evidence of scripture to argue the       sun orbits the earth

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that had different conceptions for what counts as evidence for                 settling scientific questions, e.g. "what are the heavens like?"

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Galileo thinks that evidence from direct                         observations count the most

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Bellarmine thinks that evidence also includes the evidence of scripture

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Bellarmine does not believe that observation has no               bearing at all on this question

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Bellarmine believed that as the technology got             better, there may someday be enough evidence to make the case that the earth orbits the sun

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Bellarmine did not believe that the evidence of scripture was                     sacrosanct

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what is important is that Bellarmine thinks that the evidence of scripture is                 relevant to the question whereas Galileo doesn't

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epistemic relativism

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this is not relativism about truth

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they both think that there is an objective issue that they are both trying to settle

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the each think that one of them is right and one of them is           wrong

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it's a relativism about what counts as evidence for what

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it seems that because their conceptions of what counts as evidence are so different, that there is no way of settling their               dispute

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there seems to be no               neutral ground between these two disputants

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how do we say to Bellarmine that his                 Biblical evidence isn't relevant, or how to say to Galileo that it is relevant?

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Galileo won the argument from a                     historical point of view and the perspective of the scientific revolution

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and with the scientific revolution came a view opposed to epistemic relativism, that of scientific               realism

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scientific realism

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the goal of science is to uncover the                   objective truth about the world around us

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scientific progress occurs when our theories accurately represent facts which can be                     repeatedly demonstrated

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opposed to epistemic relativism, as there is an objective epistemic basis for evaluating scientific disagreements

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which is why Galileo eventually won the argument

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science             honors the kind of evidence that Galileo was interested in

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not that which Bellarmine was interested in

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what is it about the scientific method which makes it objective in a way that the scientific               realist maintains?

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inductivism

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induction vs. deduction

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deductive inference says that if the                 premises are true, then the conclusion must be true

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all swans are purple, X is a swan, therefore X is purple

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inductive                   inference says that if the premises are true, the conclusion is only likely to be true

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lots of swans that have been observed are white, therefore it is likely that all swans are           white

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but this doesn't                   guarantee the truth of the conclusion

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science proceeds by making inductive inferences

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this kind of reasoning is                 fallible

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although its fallible reasoning, it's a rational way to build a             corpus of facts about the world based on both observation, experimentation, testing and reasoning

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approach of Karl Popper

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says that the scientific method is essential deductive, not inductive

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scientists do make lots of observations

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but then make         bold conjectures about the way the world is

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then they seek to refute and falsify those bold conjectures

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e.g. (1) see lots of white swans, (2) make a bold conjecture that all swans are white, (3) go out and try to find the counter example that falsifies the bold conjecture

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this is actually deduction: a conclusion refuted by a counter-example, e.g. there is a black swan, therefore it is not the case that all swans are white

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claims are made bold so that they are falsifiable, they state clearly what will falsify them

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            Popper argued that theories such as those of Marxim and Freudism are not falsifiable and are therefore not scientific claims

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e.g. astrology makes inferences of various kinds

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claims are very vague and                           indeterminate

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it's unclear how one would go about testing them to                         definitively show that they are true or false

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in contrast, the scientist comes up with bold conjectures

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the conjectures being bold, they offer a straight-forward way of being tested