Problems of Scientific ExplanationHave you ever thought about how your car works? The inner workings of the engine, how the fuel makes it run, how does combustion drive motion and then get transmitted to the wheels? If so, what are you going to say to an 8 year old when he asks, “Why is the car moving?” » ; Are you going to start explaining the physics, mechanics, chemistry of combustion and the concept of friction in high school? Or are you just going to say, "Well, the car uses gas, which makes the engine's wheels move." » ; Admittedly, the latter doesn't explain much about what a car is. But that answers the question through the child's understanding, doesn't it? The question is answered, the child is happy and you didn't have to spend a few weeks presenting what you just said. Some may say that this is misleading, but while viewed in general terms the simple answer may seem wrong or incomplete, in the context of the situation it is entirely adequate. This is what van Fraassen is trying to say about scientific explanation. According to him, the scientific explanation poses two problems. Both are very easily seen in our example. The first is: when is something explained? Some argue that we should not explain a phenomenon without having a complete, unifying explanation, faithful to the smallest detail, which will also cover all cases that correspond to our case, cases similar to ours, or distant variants of our case. In short, what they want is a theory of everything, which is in itself a noble goal, but difficult to achieve. Let's be real, everything in our universe is connected in one way or another, or through each other, to everything else. A man has a certain link with, for example, a “gas giant”; type of planets. One reason for this could be, for example, that the two share some common chemical elements. Does this mean that the same theory should apply to predicting the motion of humans as well as that of a gas giant? As ridiculous as it may seem, this type of proposition often arises in science, certainly not as grotesque, but nevertheless as distant, for example the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory. If a child had been told to expect the same behavior from an ant and an elephant, he would be quite confused. How then can we expect gigantic objects to obey the same rules as microscopic objects? W...... middle of paper...... everyone would go into the chemicals causing the green color of apple skin, unless asked. Demonstrations, however, are proofs, and while answering the “why”; questions, connect the causes to the essence of the phenomena, otherwise the proof is incomplete. A good example of this distinction would be the application of a simple logical rule (also known as De Morgan's law), according to which (~A and ~B) is ~(A or B) and vice versa. We can say that ~(P and ~Q) is (~P or Q) because of De Morgan's law, and this is enough for an explanation. Yet, if we were to demonstrate this rigorously without any initial hypothesis, we would be forced to prove De Morgan's law, otherwise our proof would be incomplete. To conclude, Van Fraassen's idea of ​​explanation is one that has no place in a purely theoretical theory. science, because it rejects the truth of theories as well as their appeal to essence. The domain of an explanation, according to him, is to be adequate in the context chosen by pragmatic factors, which arise from "why"; question to which the explanation is called to..