6
Conceptualization of Science
and Experimental Model Systems
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of
complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that
the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest.
A. N. Whitehead
Abstract
This chapter is focused on some aspects of scientific methodology. The
importance of the choice of the investigating models, and how this model
selection is critical for the formation of the new scientific paradigm is discussed.
I demonstrate how the selection of combustion process as a model for the
investigation of chemical transformtions led to the formation of the first chemical
theory—the phlogiston theory.
Keywords
Models in science Á Phlogiston theory Á Ad hoc theory
Although scientific concepts are focused on the particular topics, their epistemological structure must be universal. History of science is full of examples, which
show that scientific revolutions, the changes of paradigm, were started with the
investigations of very specific case studies, rather than with the research of great
very well known systems.
The transition from classical to quantum physics did not in principle occurred
within the actual system of Maxwell (James Clerk Maxwell, 1831–1879) electrodynamics that represented a triumph of classical physics at the end of 19th
century. Quantum theory appeared from in that time almost irrelevant observations
of radiation of a black body. Max Planck (1858–1947) was not spurred by the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
H. Vančik, Philosophy of Chemistry, Integrated Science 2,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69224-7_6
55
Conceptualization of Science
and Experimental Model Systems
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of
complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that
the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest.
A. N. Whitehead
Abstract
This chapter is focused on some aspects of scientific methodology. The
importance of the choice of the investigating models, and how this model
selection is critical for the formation of the new scientific paradigm is discussed.
I demonstrate how the selection of combustion process as a model for the
investigation of chemical transformtions led to the formation of the first chemical
theory—the phlogiston theory.
Keywords
Models in science Á Phlogiston theory Á Ad hoc theory
Although scientific concepts are focused on the particular topics, their epistemological structure must be universal. History of science is full of examples, which
show that scientific revolutions, the changes of paradigm, were started with the
investigations of very specific case studies, rather than with the research of great
very well known systems.
The transition from classical to quantum physics did not in principle occurred
within the actual system of Maxwell (James Clerk Maxwell, 1831–1879) electrodynamics that represented a triumph of classical physics at the end of 19th
century. Quantum theory appeared from in that time almost irrelevant observations
of radiation of a black body. Max Planck (1858–1947) was not spurred by the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
H. Vančik, Philosophy of Chemistry, Integrated Science 2,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69224-7_6
55