Stace Exam

Multiple Choice Exam

W.T. Stace,"Science and the Physical World"

Please use a form 882-ES Scan-Tron Card to record your answers. Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.

1. According to Stace, causal laws:

A. do not apply to things outside of the realm of perception
B. cannot be used to make inferences to the existence of things which are unperceivable
C. are abbreviated generalized descriptions of what happens
D. enable scientists to make predictions
E. all of the above

2. Stace maintains that we have no reason to assert that there are entities which exist outside of the realm of perception which function as the causes of our sensations because:

A. nothing exists except sensations
B. the causes of our sensations can be sufficiently accounted for in terms of objects which exist within the realm of perception
C. the law of causation does not apply to ojects outside the realm of perception
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

3. According to Stace, we have no right to use the law of causation to make inferences from sensations to the existence of entities which are not observable because:

A. we could never determine whether our inferences were, in fact, correct
B. causal laws can only be used to make predictions
C. causal laws cannot be applied outside of the realm of perception
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

4. Stace's view depends upon the assumption that there is an absolute distinction between:

A. the realm of perception and the realm of conception
B. observables and unobservables
C. sensations and perceptions
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

5. According to Stace, the inference from the existence of sensations to the existence of theoretical entities such as electrons, protons, and atoms is :

A. a deductive inference
B. an hypothetical inference
C. a causal inference
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

6. According to Stace, scientific laws are "true" if what they assert :

A. corresponds with the facts
B. is consistent with other known truths
C. enables the prediction of phenomena
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

7. According to Stace, Einstein's law of gravitity:

A. is "truer" than Newton's because it correctly predicts more phenomena
B. provides better explanations of phenomena than Newton's
C. is better than Newton's because it replaces the "forces" in Newton's law with "humps and hills in space-time"
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

8. According to Stace, the main reason people invent theoretical entities is that they believe:

A. scientific laws contain only terms which refer to unobservables
B. science provides explanations of why things behave the way they do
C. scientific laws state, in an abbreviated and generalized form, what happens
D. all of the above
E. none of the above.

9. According to Stace, the "existence" of theoretical entities:

A. is not required to predict our sensations and organize our experience
B. is necessary to account for the phenomena we experience
C. performs a necessary and indispensible explanatory function in science
D. all of the above
E. none of the above

10. According to Stace, stars:

A. are not physical objects which exist independent of us
B. are mental constructions or fictions which help us organize our experience
C. are conceptions which enable us to predict certain sensations
D. all of the above
E. none of the above