Yafeng Shan

Bio: Yafeng Shan is an academic researcher from University of Kent. The author has contributed to research in topics: Epistemology & Philosophy of science. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 15 publications receiving 32 citations. Previous affiliations of Yafeng Shan include Durham University & Tel Aviv University.

A New Functional Approach to Scientific Progress

Abstract: This paper develops and defends a new functional approach to scientific progress. I begin with a review of the problems of the traditional functional approach. Then I propose a new functional account of scientific progress, in which scientific progress is defined in terms of usefulness of problem-defining and problem-solving. I illustrate and defend my account by applying to the history of genetics. Finally, I highlight the advantages of my new functional approach over the epistemic and semantic approaches and dismiss some potential objections to my approach.

Kuhn’s “wrong turning” and legacy today

Abstract: Alexander Bird indicates that the significance of Thomas Kuhn in the history of philosophy of science is somehow paradoxical. On the one hand, Kuhn was one of the most influential and important philosophers of science in the second half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, nowadays there is little distinctively Kuhn’s legacy in the sense that most of Kuhn’s work has no longer any philosophical significance. Bird argues that the explanation of the paradox of Kuhn’s legacy is that Kuhn took a direction opposite to that of the mainstream of the philosophy of science in his later academic career. This paper aims to provide a new way to understand and develop Kuhn’s legacy by revisiting the development of Kuhn’s philosophy of science in 1970s and proposing a new account of exemplar. Firstly, I propose my diagnosis of Kuhn’s “wrong turning” by identifying Kuhn’s two novel contributions: the introduction of paradigm and the proposal of the incommensurability thesis. Secondly, I argue that Kuhn made a conceptual/terminological turn from paradigm to theory, which undermined Kuhn’s novel contributions. Thirdly, I propose a new articulation of exemplar and propose an exemplar-based approach to analysing the history of science. Finally, I show how the exemplar-based approach can be applied to analyse the history of science by my case study of the early development of genetics.

Applying Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences

Abstract: Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) a new account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections.

The Scientific Image

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The Idea Of History

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The Theory of the Gene

Abstract: IN this volume is published the series of lectures on the Silliman Foundation recently given by Prof. Morgan. We are not told when the lectures were delivered, but as the book appeared only during the present year, we may take it as representing the latest pronouncement of the American school of geneticists on these matters. In the first chapter is given a formal statement of the theory of the gene, and in view of the fact that some misconception of what it implies is not infrequently to be found among biologists who have not specially studied genetics, it may be as well to reproduce it here. The Theory of the Gene. By Prof. Thomas Hunt Morgan. (Yale University: Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures.) Pp. xvi + 343. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1926.) 18s. net.