Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T16:40:56.353Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Methodology of Scientific Research Programs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2020

Get access

Summary

Karl Popper’s logical and epistemological insights are the basis of a widely used methodology for judging the success of scientific theories – or more accurately, of scientific “research programs,” defined as the evolving set of theories that share a common set of assumptions (or “paradigm” in the language of Thomas Kuhn). Imre Lakatos’s Methodology of Scientific Research Programs judges an evolving theory in terms of how it responds to falsifying instances – via ad hoc adjustments (bad) or via content-increasing hypotheses (good) – and how well it predicts facts in advance of their discovery. A theory that evolves in content-increasing ways, and that predicts novel facts in advance of their confirmation, is called “progressive”; a theory that fails to do so is called “degenerating.” Particularly important are predictions that differ from those of a competing theory – which in the case of MOND is the standard cosmological model.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Philosophical Approach to MOND
Assessing the Milgromian Research Program in Cosmology
, pp. 20 - 42
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×