Paper 4
Philosophy and Scientific Practice
You should answer four questions in total. Answer one question from
Section A and three questions from Section B. All questions carry equal
weighting.
Begin each answer on a separate sheet.
Write legibly and on only one side of the paper.
Answers must be tied up in separate bundles, marked 1, 2, 3, etc.
according to the number of the question.
Attach a completed coversheet to each bundle and complete a master
coversheet listing all questions attempted. It is essential that you write
your examination number and not your name on the coversheet and on
each bundle.
You may not start to read the questions printed on the subsequent
pages of this question paper until instructed to do so by the
invigilator.
Page 2 of 2
SECTION A
1. What should philosophers of science learn from the plurality of science?
2. What is the function of experiments in the sciences? Discuss with
reference to at least two cases from different sciences.
3. “If there are no causes in physics, there can be no causes in biology.”
Discuss.
SECTION B
4. Is metaphysics conceptually prior to physics?
5. Does relativity theory tell us that future events already exist?
6. What are the most significant threats to objectivity in medical science
and why?
7. Are economists right to base their discipline on rational choice
modelling?
8. What, if any, normative assumptions are acceptable in welfare
economics?
9. “The simplest explanation is the best explanation when accounting for
the behaviour of nonhuman animals.” Do you agree?
10. Is personalised medicine possible?
11. “There are, I would submit, no laws in the strict sense about organisms,
because organisms are vastly more complicated and idiosyncratic
structures [than those the physicist deals with]” (J.J.C. Smart, 1963). Do
you agree?
12. Is mechanistic evidence enough to warrant causal inferences about the
effectiveness of interventions?