Abstract

My aim in this dissertation is to develop an evolutionary conception of science based on recent studies in evolution theory, the thermodynamics of non-equilibrium and information theory, as exemplified in the works of Prigogine, Jantsch, Wicken and Gatlin. ;The nature of scientific change is of interest to philosophers and historians of science. Some construe it after a revolutionary model , others adopt an evolutionary view . It appears to me that it is possible to construct an evolutionary model encompassing the revolutionary mode as well. The following strategies are employed: A distinction is made between two types of growth: one represents gradual change, the other designates radical transformations, and two principles underlying the process of change, one of conservation, the other of innovation. Science in general, and scientific theories in particular, are looked upon as dissipative structures. These are characterised by openness, irreversibility and self-organisation. In terms of these, one may identify a state of "normal" growth and another of violent fluctuations leading to a new order . These fluctuations are generated by the flow of information coming from the observable world. ;The chief merits of this evolutionary model of the development of science lie in the emphasis it puts on the relation of science to its environment, in the description of scientific change as a process of interaction between internal and external elements , in the enhancement of our understanding progress and rationality in science, and in the post Neo-Darwinian conception of evolution, stressing self-organisation, the innovativeness of the evolutionary process and the trend toward complexification. These features are also manifested in the process of discovery, which is a fundamental part of the scientific enterprise. In addition, a distinction is made between two types of discovery which serves as a criterion for delineating various episodes in the development of science. The evolutionary model further displays a complementarity mode of description on several levels: between science and its milieu, stability and instability, discovery and confirmation