SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS & WHY-QUESTIONS

Thousands of years ago, our explanations about how the world worked were not very good. Things we couldn't understand were attributed to praise or vengeance from gods, or thinking the world was random. Thanks to science, we have a much better idea about why things are the way they are. Science is the study of the natural world through observation and experiment. A scientific explanation uses observations and measurements to explain something we see in the natural world. Scientific explanations should match the evidence and be logical, or they should at least match as much of the evidence as possible.

SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

Any explanation consists of two parts, the explanandum and the explanans. The explanandum is the fact that is to be explained. The explanans is that which does the explaining. It consists of whatever facts, particular or general, are summoned to explain the explanandum. An argument is simply a set of statements, Scientific Explanation. Scientific Explanation one of which is singled out as the conclusion of the argument. The remaining members of the set are premises. There may be one or more premises; no fixed number of premises is required. The premises provide support for the conclusion.

WHY-QUESTONS IN SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

Not all why-questions are requests for scientific explanations. That some scientific explanations are answers to how-possibly-questions. We will leave open the possibility that some explanations cannot suitably be requested by why-questions.

The problem, you see, when you ask why something happens, how does a person answer why something happens? For example, Uncle John is in the hospital. Why? Because he went out, slipped, and broke his hip. That satisfies people. It satisfies, but it wouldn’t satisfy someone who came from another planet and knew nothing about why when you break your hip do you go to the hospital. How do you get to the hospital when the hip is broken? Well, because his wife, seeing that his hip was broken, called the hospital up and sent somebody to get him. All that is understood by people. And when you explain a why, you have to be in some framework that you allow something to be true. Otherwise, you’re perpetually asking why. Why did the wife call up the hospital? Because the wife is interested in her husband’s welfare. Not always, some husbands aren’t interested in their wives’ welfare when they’re drunk, and they’re angry. There are some Why-questions in science.

Why do we dream?

We spend around a third of our lives sleeping. Considering how much time we spend doing it, you might think we’d know everything about it. But scientists are still searching for a complete explanation of why we sleep and dream. Subscribers to Sigmund Freud’s views believed dreams were expressions of unfulfilled wishes – often sexual – while others wonder whether dreams are anything but the random firings of a sleeping brain. Animal studies and advances in brain imaging have led us to a more complex understanding that suggests dreaming could play a role in memory, learning and emotions. Rats, for example, have been shown to replay their waking experiences in dreams, apparently helping them to solve complex tasks such as navigating mazes.

Why is there stuff?

You really shouldn’t be here. The “stuff” you’re made of is matter, which has a counterpart called antimatter differing only in electrical charge. When they meet, both disappear in a flash of energy. Our best theories suggest that the big bang created equal amounts of the two, meaning all matter should have since encountered its antimatter counterpart, scarpering them both and leaving the universe awash with only energy. Clearly nature has a subtle bias for matter otherwise you wouldn’t exist.

Explanation is not a formal relationship (defined in terms of logic).It is a pragmatic relationship – context and practice dependent: “Why” questions are asked, and regarded as answered, within specific contests. To understand them (and just what will count as an explanation) requires knowledge of the scientific context within which they are asked.

REFERENCES

[1] Explanations in Science and the Logic of Why-Questions: Discussion of the Halonen-Hintikka-Approach and Alternative Proposal, Gerhard Schurz

[2] https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/integrating-