The Junior Science Club affiliated with the Centre for Integrated Studies, University of Hyderabad, collaborating with the Department of Philosophy (UoH), organised a two-day workshop on the philosophy of science and the nature of understanding. Dr Shinod N. K. (Department of Philosophy) delivered two talks on the 26th and 27th of August titled ‘The Myth of Scientific Method’ and ‘The Myth of Purity’, respectively. Dr Joby Joseph (Centre for Cognitive and Neural Sciences) delivered a lecture titled ‘Understanding Understanding’ on 26th August. A total of 126 participants registered for the workshop from various universities around the city. Both days of the event were livestreamed as registered participants attended from all corners of the country and a recorded version is available on Junior Science Club’s YouTube channel.
This workshop explored how science works and is believed to work. It investigated the scientific method and its promise of value neutrality and finally looked into how human beings understand and how understanding affects the scientific method. The Myth of Scientific Method showed a few short case studies from the history of science. It tested whether the claim to a universal method of science could stand up to scrutiny if we considered the actual science practice. The second lecture by Dr. Joseph explored the multidimensional nature of human, non-human, and artificial understanding. The value-neutral aspect of science was explored in the final session of the series, where the values that invisibly affect science and the nature of objectivity were discussed.
