On April 12, 2019, Professor Angelo Petroni from the University of Rome and Aspen Institute Italia gave a speech titled “Why Philosophy of Science Matters” to students of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development (ISSCAD) at Peking University Public Policy Forum International. With his extensive studies on the history and logic of scientific discovery in physics, the methodology of social sciences, and contemporary liberal thoughts, Professor Petroni explored in the speech the main concepts in the philosophy of science, the importance for public and private decision-makers to understand the philosophy of science, and the relationship between science and politics. Professor FU Jun, Academic Dean of ISSCAD hosted the event.

Professor Petroni began by presenting the nine questions addressed by the philosophy of science, but because of the time limit, he asked the students to understand only two main concepts: the structure of a law of nature and how a valid scientific explanation functions. Taking several Newton’s laws as examples, ProfessorPetroni stated that universal laws took the logical form as (x) (Px > Qx), which can be translated as “for any material body x, if x has the property P, it also has the property Q.” He then presented deterministic explanation and probabilistic explanation as two ways through which the laws of nature were used to explain and predict phenomena, and in this way, he showed the students that the laws of nature were crucial because no sound explanation or prediction of phenomena could be made without these laws.

After explaining the importance of the philosophy of science, Professor Petroni further pointed out that the philosophy of science mattered not only to natural and social scientists but also to every public and private decision maker. For example, public decision-makers should consider how to allocate public resources for scientific research and which criteria to follow. Decision makers in companies of fields such as healthcare, law, and journalism should also be able to distinguish between scientific and pseudoscientific claims. Professor Petroniborrowed Robert Merton’s definition of the ethos of science and taught the students to identify true science according to four institutional imperatives –universalism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism.

Then Professor Petroni continued to explain the relationship between politics and science. He claimed that science was not a democratic endeavor, thus there could be no true science if scientists were not given the freedom to express their opinions. Besides, science is a “spontaneous order,” which emerges from the free judgments about what is true or false about theories, observations, and experimental results. Consequently, if one tries to impose upon science any specific purpose, he destroys the very mechanism by which science progresses towards a deep knowledge of nature. In conclusion, political institutions should never decide what scientists should consider as true or false or decide the direction of the research that science should take. Otherwise, politics would severely harm science. Moreover, political institutions also need to fulfill two main functions regarding scientific research. The first function is to decide how many public resources should be allocated in different fields of research. Secondly, political institutions are supposed to make sure that scientific research, especially experimental research, is conducted in full respect of ethical principles.

Inspired by the topic which is closely related to their work and studies, students raised questions concerning the relationship between culture and tradition, the origin of science, and the order of political systems. To answer these questions, Professor Petroni further elaborated on his opinions about science and its role in society. Through this speech, the students learned Professor Petroni’s wisdom, humor, and extensive knowledge of philosophy of science and were certainly encouraged to apply the philosophy of science to their life and work in the future.