abel questions

1. science explains a fact by taking a general law and deriving the fact depending on the circumstances of the fact. fact is taken from the before and after of the event.
2. some common misconceptions about scientific explanation are:
a. science describes rather than explain. however, Abel claims that there is no distinct recognition between explanation and description
b. sciences explains the strange with the familiar. Abel states that it is the other way around with the familiar being explained by the strange
c. Science explanation is not the same as "understanding." Abel says that this knowledge is more like "knowledge by acquaintance" or like "knowing how."
d. a scientific explanation does not need to be casual. abel states that it may be a law of simultaneous existence rather than succession.
3. General law is deduced from a broader view rather than induced from experiment.
4. explanations depend on the person. since different knowers perceive different truths for some situations. there has to be a point were all perceived knowledge must be the same to have a knowledgeable situation.
5. explanatory reductions are economic ways of describing phenomena because these reductions simplify the concept without eliminating any parts of understanding
6. scientific explanation requires the concepts of a system because because each part of the system is combined to create a complete concept rather than a computer system finding the sum of the event.
7. the theory of emergence is used to explain the how anything never came into this world because one can predict the sum of something combined, even though there are two separate entities.
8. theory and observation are independent from each other because observation does not constitute a theory.
9. scientific explanation is theoretically identical to prediction because if something can be predicted, that means that there is an understanding to how that something works. Abel argues that explanation does not need to predict anything in understanding it.
10. Abel means that many factors influence the progression of science which does not make it clear cut, but can take many directions
11.the situations that require explanation are situations that seem "natural" to us.
12. the human element cannot be eliminated from the process of scientific explanation because we provide all the rules and create the laws.
12. this does hold true in history because history is always changing depending on new information being found