THE PHLOGISTON THEORY: If one places a great deal of faith in science’s purported aim of “explaining” nature, then one is left with the task of defending those explanations of the past which explained a great many things and yet were subsequently found to be spurious. The Phlogiston Theory, for example, failed to explain, in a satisfactory manner, a great deal of diverse phenomenon which today is subsumed under the heading of oxidation reactions. Even though the theory had the initial advantage of appearing to explain things by that all-inclusive essence of phlogiston, the prominent short-coming of the theory was, specifically, its failure to really explain anything.
Now, if science has as one of its aims that of explaining things, then this phlogiston theory must be reduced to the realm of non-science. If this can happen to the theory of phlogistons then all theories are vulnerable to a similar fate. In other words, all of science is suspect. And you may safely assert that this is certainly the case. In fact, you may assert that it must always be the case in science: science is an epistemological effort which cannot stand on settled “truth”. Instead, it is an endless search for more accurate, more precise “truth”.
But, where does this leave the scientist? Isn’t he then in a position where everything he believes to be true must be doubted per se? That is, is science reduced to a series of “I think this is so, but I don’t know” propositions? If it is, then how does one make any theory truly credible? What makes a good theory sound if it is always subject to doubt? Isn’t the test one of what can be done with the theory, rather than what cannot be done? Remember: what cannot be done is believing in the theory with complete certainty. Spurious theories fail, not because they fail to explain satisfactorily, but because they have little use in the practical application of science - what can be done with a theory is the crux of the test, not what area can be effectively enveloped with intelligible explanations.
The phlogiston theory, then, fell into disrepute, not because it failed to explain things, but rather because it did not adequately describe things. This adequacy of description is not to be confused with accuracy of description, for, the oxidation/reduction theory which effectively replaced the phlogiston theory is itself subject to correction and amplification: as of the present date the theory is adequate for our purposes, even though it might not fit all cases with some standard measure of accuracy. What made the phlogiston theory so nebulous was an “essence” which was supposed to leave a reaction when, say, a candle was burned or an “essence” which arrived to account for the gain in weight of a burned (oxidized) substance. This dealing with what is now seen as oxygen moving into a gaseous end product (which explains loss of weight in a burning candle) or into a solid end product (which explains the gain in weight in metal oxides - dealing with this “essence” in such an imprecise manner - lead to apparent contradictions: candles lost weight when burned and metals gained weight when burned; the “same” thing certainly could not account for both reactions, so men thought.
As long as men thought in terms of “essences” and phlogistic elements moving into or out of reactions, the area of concentration remained too broad for any practical application. How does one harness an essence? What, for that matter, is the “essence?” It was in answering these questions about essences that the essences were identified as oxygen or oxidation reactants and which, then, limited the context of experimental materials to more amenable procedures. With “essences,” alone, the context, being too broad, would not allow an experimenter to manipulate any of the variables, since the variables always remained indeterminate. Once such things as oxygen or oxidation reactions were recognized, the each reactant could be varied.
Now, if science has as one of its aims that of explaining things, then this phlogiston theory must be reduced to the realm of non-science. If this can happen to the theory of phlogistons then all theories are vulnerable to a similar fate. In other words, all of science is suspect. And you may safely assert that this is certainly the case. In fact, you may assert that it must always be the case in science: science is an epistemological effort which cannot stand on settled “truth”. Instead, it is an endless search for more accurate, more precise “truth”.
But, where does this leave the scientist? Isn’t he then in a position where everything he believes to be true must be doubted per se? That is, is science reduced to a series of “I think this is so, but I don’t know” propositions? If it is, then how does one make any theory truly credible? What makes a good theory sound if it is always subject to doubt? Isn’t the test one of what can be done with the theory, rather than what cannot be done? Remember: what cannot be done is believing in the theory with complete certainty. Spurious theories fail, not because they fail to explain satisfactorily, but because they have little use in the practical application of science - what can be done with a theory is the crux of the test, not what area can be effectively enveloped with intelligible explanations.
The phlogiston theory, then, fell into disrepute, not because it failed to explain things, but rather because it did not adequately describe things. This adequacy of description is not to be confused with accuracy of description, for, the oxidation/reduction theory which effectively replaced the phlogiston theory is itself subject to correction and amplification: as of the present date the theory is adequate for our purposes, even though it might not fit all cases with some standard measure of accuracy. What made the phlogiston theory so nebulous was an “essence” which was supposed to leave a reaction when, say, a candle was burned or an “essence” which arrived to account for the gain in weight of a burned (oxidized) substance. This dealing with what is now seen as oxygen moving into a gaseous end product (which explains loss of weight in a burning candle) or into a solid end product (which explains the gain in weight in metal oxides - dealing with this “essence” in such an imprecise manner - lead to apparent contradictions: candles lost weight when burned and metals gained weight when burned; the “same” thing certainly could not account for both reactions, so men thought.
As long as men thought in terms of “essences” and phlogistic elements moving into or out of reactions, the area of concentration remained too broad for any practical application. How does one harness an essence? What, for that matter, is the “essence?” It was in answering these questions about essences that the essences were identified as oxygen or oxidation reactants and which, then, limited the context of experimental materials to more amenable procedures. With “essences,” alone, the context, being too broad, would not allow an experimenter to manipulate any of the variables, since the variables always remained indeterminate. Once such things as oxygen or oxidation reactions were recognized, the each reactant could be varied.
2 comments:
Such an interesting post, and I enjoyed reading about the phlogiston theory again.. it's been years since I last read it! I do wonder though, what is the difference between 'failing to explain' and 'adequately describing'? I think scientific theories are an explanation/ description of observations first, and as more observations are made, those theories are modified, based on the idea of falsifiability. Is this not what your post refers to?
At some extremely naive level of understanding, magical “explanations” account for the sudden appearance of coins beneath a pillow, i.e., “the Tooth Fairy,” or pet dragons being responsible for Mommy’s broken vase. The sole criterion for judging the adequacy of that sort of explanation is the “reasonableness’ of the explanation. Those childish explanations, to be sure, don’t hack it. Science, however, does not operate on the basis of “reasonable explanations.” It demands objective, measurable, verifiable, and repeatable descriptions of “what happened.” Invariably, those descriptions include reports of specific volumes of oxygen consumed and carbon dioxide produced, instead of Phlogiston’s magic “essence” moving into or out of a reaction. Science doesn’t explain. Science describes. I hope to have further posts on this same topic in the future. But I’m glad that you found the post interesting.
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