Abstract
I argue that van Fraassen’s selectionist explanation for the success of science is superior to the realists’ explanation. Whereas realists argue that our current theories are successful because they accurately reflect the structure of the world, the selectionist claims that our current theories are successful because unsuccessful theories have been eliminated. I argue that, unlike the explanation proposed by the realist, the selectionist explanation can also account for the failures of once successful theories and the fact that sometimes two competing theories are both equally successful.
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Notes
Musgrave (1988) argues that the success of novel predictions is the main success that needs to be explained. Further, he claims that realists offer the best explanation for this fact.
Even some anti-realists have construed the demand for explanation in this way. Stanford (2000), for example, argues that van Fraassen merely explains why science in general produces successful theories, not why a particular theory is successful (272). Stanford argues that, contrary to what the realist would have us believe, “the best we can do by way of explaining the success of a theory is to claim that it is either approximately true or predictively similar to the theoretical truth of the matter in the relevant domain, but admit that we don’t know which” (282–283).
A similar argument is developed by Smart (1963). He claims that the success of merely instrumentalist theories would seem to depend upon a cosmic coincidence (39).
Often the realists’ argument is laid out as an instance of the fallacy of affirming the consequent (see Brown 1985; Musgrave 1988). Assuming the truth of a theory, an observation is predicted. And the prediction is confirmed by experience, thus leading to the (erroneous) conclusion that the theory is true (see also Laudan 1981). The advantage of the way I have presented the realists’ argument is that it is at least a valid inference. It is an instance of disjunctive syllogism.
Musgrave (1988) also recognizes that the realist is not presenting us with a genuine dichotomy.
Advocates of Tycho Brahe’s theory of planetary motion were faced with a similar problem. In Brahe’s theory, the planets orbited the sun, which orbited the Earth.
Toulmin (1981) also emphasizes in his evolutionary model of scientific change that the standards by which theories and contributions are judged are determined by various historical contingencies (see 27). Thus, new developments in a field affect the evaluation of subsequent developments.
The fact that van Fraassen’s selectionist explanation enables us to explain both the success and failures of science should appease proponents of the Strong Programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge. Their symmetry principle demands that the same causes explain both the success and failures of scientists (see Barnes and Bloor 1982, 22–23).
Surprisingly, in his discussion of the success of the Ptolemaic theory Niiniluoto (1999) claims that before the development of Copernicus’ theory “it was indeed rational to regard Ptolemy’s well-developed theory as the most truthlike of the existing astronomical theories” (192).
A referee for Erkenntnis insisted that I address the issue of novel predictions, rightly noting that van Fraassen does not acknowledge the distinction between successful predictions and successful novel predictions.
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Acknowledgement
I thank the following people for comments on earlier drafts: Lori Nash, Kristina Rolin, Jim Brown, and Anjan Chakravartty. I also thank a referee for Erkenntnis who provided helpful feedback. Kyle Stanford and Gerry Doppelt provided insightful feedback to me when I presented an earlier draft of the paper at the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, in Portland, Oregon, in April 2006. Finally, I thank the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY-Oswego for supporting my travel to that conference.
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Brad Wray, K. A selectionist explanation for the success and failures of science. Erkenntnis 67, 81–89 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9046-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9046-1