The Buttered Cat Principle, or Why You Should Trust Me with Science!

Dear Ms. Inquiry,


I've always wanted to hear you discuss your take on whether or not buttered toast attached butter-side up to a cat's back would break all the laws of physics, but I don't know if that's appropriate.


Inappropriately yours,
Heather


Dear Heather,

Inappropriate philosophy?  In MY blog?  It's more likely than you think.

The idea that buttered toast tied to a cat will create an anti-gravity device is as old as the internet.  It's a sad state of affairs when an idea this whimsical has its own Wikipedia article, when serious philosophers such as myself do not!  Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Actual image from Wikipedia.  Not pictured: Wikipedia images of philosobloggers :-(

For the as-yet uninformed, the Buttered Cat principle is based on two premises:

• Toast always lands butter-side down
• Cats always land on their feet

From these premises, we speculate that by strapping toasts to cats, the cats will FLY!  Being as this is a matter of scientific speculation, it is high time that we learned about Philosophy of Science!  A philosopher of science looks at science and tells us if it's doing a good job.  Who could be better qualified for that task than I?

My name is Nat.  I have a blog, I dress up like Harry Potter, and I'm here to tell you if science is doing a good job.

Let's think about the Buttered Cat principle's reasoning.  It's based on speculation.  Speculation is that thing you do when a few things make sense to you, so you come up with conclusions based on those things!  Let's take evolutionary psychology, for example.  Evolutionary psychology says that dudes are biologically inclined to cheat on their girlfriends because a long, long time ago, Australopithedude realized that if he got it on with lots of Australopithechicks, he'd have lots and lots of babies EVERYWHERE and his DNA would have a better chance of surviving!

It was also good for his swing!

Meanwhile, Australopithedude's girlfriend would totally remain faithful because she only makes one egg a month, and even then, she kind of pays attention to the same egg for nine months, so it makes sense to stay with one dude, right?

Speculation.  Keeping the woman down since prehistoric times!

Adding to the myriad reasons why philosophers are good with the ladies, philosophers of science are quick to point out that speculation isn't good science!  It's not even science!  "Evolutionary psychology" sounds a lot like a science, what with the words "evolutionary" and "psychology" in it, but it's really just people making up some stuff that sounds like it makes sense and then drawing conclusions.  I mean, I can make some stuff up too!  For example, I have green eyes, unruly, dark hair, and a penchant for wisecracks.  According to speculation, I may actually be Harry Potter.  Makes sense, doesn't it?

Science has a method.  It's based on inductive logic (more on the problems with that later... I'm lookin' at you, David Hume).  We made it so that we can answer questions and rule out meddling variables.  It works pretty okay, though it's not perfect!

Now, you probably know about the scientific method.  It goes like this:

1. State the problem (CAN CATS FLY?)
2. Gather information (Wikipedia says so!)
3. Form a hypothesis (Cats + buttered toast = flight)
4. Test the hypothesis (Strap that buttered toast to the cat)
5. Collect and analyze data (Keep strapping more toast to more cats and record cat elevation)
6. Draw conclusions (Cats can fly, true or false.)

So to take the Buttered Cat principle from SPECULATION to SCIENCE, we actually have to do the experiment.  And do it lots of times, with lots of different cats, to rule out the variables.  Some questions we might ask ourselves:

• What kind of toast creates the most aerodynamic cat?
• Which cat makes the best aircraft?
• How much butter will best capitalize upon the Bernoulli Principle?
• Would this work with margarine?
• How cute would my cat look in one of those aviator hats?

So there you go, Heather.  The buttered cat principle may be true, but science won't give us any answers unless we do an experiment.  We can't know anything for sure by speculation alone! 

Hope that helps,

Harry Potter Yours In Inquiry