Title
Professor of Philosophy of Science
Biography
John Worrall began to study statistics at LSE, but, seduced by Karl Popper's lectures, soon switched to a course that was part statistics and mathematics and part philosophy. He came under the influence of Imre Lakatos - who tried to convert him to his own brand of 24 hour a day philosophy. He studied for a PhD under Lakatos - developing the latter's methodology of research programmes and testing it against a detailed case history from 19th century physics.
Worrall was appointed to a lectureship at LSE in 1971, becoming Professor in 1998. Having for many years played the cricket of pure reason for the LSE Staff Cricket XI, his chief Departmental role is now as leader of its rock n roll band (The Critique of Pure Rhythm - name not his idea!). Worrall's main intellectual interests are in theory-change in science - and its impact on the twin theses of scientific rationality and scientific realism. He is currently completing a book on the subject for Oxford University Press. More recently he has developed a major interest in methodological and philosophical issues in medicine particularly concerned with clinical trials and the general issue of the warrant for causal claims in medicine.
He was for 10 years the editor of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, held visiting fellowships at the Universities of Pittsburgh and of Otago, and has lectured around the world - in the USA, China, South America, Australia and New Zealand as well as Eastern and Western Europe. He is President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science.
Research interests
Philosophy of science, especially theory-change in science; 19th century optics; philosophy and methodology of medicine, especially issues concerned with the scope and limits of scientific method in medicine.
Publications
He has published widely in journals and anthologies, edited Imre Lakatos's collected works and a recent volume on The Ontology of Science. He was editor of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science from 1974 to 1983, and is currently completing a book on theory-change.
Publications include:
-
'Do we need some large, simple, randomized trials in medicine?' in M. Suarez, M. Dorato and M. Redei (eds) EPSA Philosophical Issues in the Sciences. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.
-
'Error, Tests and Theory Confirmation' in D. Mayo and A. Spanos (eds) Error and Inference. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
-
'Miracles and Models: Why reports of the death of Structural Realism may be exaggerated', Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, Volume 82, Supplement 61, October 2007, pp 125-154.
-
'Why There's No Cause to Randomize', The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2007; 58(3):451-488.
-
'Evidence in Medicine and Evidence-Based Medicine', Philosophy Compass 2007.
-
'History and Theory-Confirmation' in J. Worrall and C. Cheyne (eds) Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave. Pp.31-61 Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2006.
-
'Prediction and the 'periodic law': a rejoinder to Barnes', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 2005; 36: 817-826.
-
'Evidence-based vs. 'impressionist' medicine: how best to implement guidelines' (with W. H Fennell) European Heart Journal, November 2, 2005; 26(22): 2474-2474.
-
"Why Science Discredits Religion' in M. Peterson and R. Vanarragon (eds) Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion. Blackwell, 2004
-
"Normal Science and Dogmatism, Paradigms and Progress: Kuhn 'versus' Popper and Lakatos" in T.Nickles (ed): Thomas Kuhn. Cambridge University Press, 2003
-
"What Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine" Philosophy of Science, September 2002
-
(with E. Scerri) "Prediction and the periodic table" Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Vol 32/3, 2001;
-
'Kuhn, Bayes and "Theory-Choice": How Revolutionary is Kuhn's Account of Theoretical Change?" in R. Nola and H. Sankey (eds): After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method, 2000;
-
'The Scope, Limits and Distinctiveness of the Method of "Deduction from the Phenomena": Some Lessons from Newton's "Demonstrations" in Optics' The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2000;
-
"Two Cheers for Naturalised Philosophy of Science", Science and Education, July 1999"
-
Structural Realism: the Best of Both Worlds" in D.Papineau (ed) The Philosophy of Science (Oxford 1996).
-
Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Subject Editor for Philosophy of Science), (Routledge, 1998)
-
"Philosophy and Natural Science" in A C Grayling (Ed.), Philosophy 2. Further through the subject (Oxford University Press, 1998)
-
'"Revolution in Permanence": Karl Popper on theory-change in science', Karl Popper: Problems and Philosophy (CUP, 1995)
-
The Ontology of Science, ed (Dartmouth Publishing Co, 1994)
For a full list of publications see John Worrall's publications|
Work in Progress
Email: j.worrall@lse.ac.uk|