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The Best Explanation of a Scientific Paper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Peter Lipton
Peter Lipton*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
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Extract

Frederick Suppe would have us reject hypothetico-deductivism, Bayesianism, and Inference to the Best Explanation, on the grounds that none of these philosophical models can account for the argumentative structure that virtually all data-based papers in science share, a structure exemplified by W. Jason Morgan's landmark paper in plate tectonics (Morgan 1968). At the core of that putative universal structure is a strategy whereby recalcitrant data are given interpretations designed to show that the theory or scientific model being advanced need not take them into account. Pity Karl Popper: immunizing stratagems are the soul of scientific argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 406 - 410
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1998

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, UK.

‡

I am grateful to Anjan Chakravartty, Greg Radick, and Paul Teller for illuminating discussions.

References

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