Summary
Popper has argued that the repetition of tests yields diminishing returns. His argument has been criticised by Musgrave for involving an inductive element. This paper argues that Musgrave's solution robs the concept of corroboration of it's force. An alternative solution is suggested on the basis of a differentiation between replication and repetition. It is argued that one then does receive diminishing returns in agreement with the structure of corroboration in general.
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References
Cf. of all the possible loci, Popper.Conjectures and Refutations, 1963, 36.
Cf. the famous and beautiful “swamp-metaphor” inThe Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959, 111.
Musgrave, Popper and “Diminishing returns from repeated tests”Australasion Journal of Philosophy 53 (1975), 248–253.
in: Conjectures and Refutations, 215–250.
op. cit. 240.
Musgrave, “Popper and ...”, 250–251.
Musgrave, op. cit. 251.
Cf. Musgrave, op. cit. 252.
op. cit. 251.
op. cit. 252.
ibidem.
cf.Logic of Scientific Discovery 46. See especially sec. 22 note 1.
Popper, op. cit. 87.
cf. also Popper,Conjectures and Refutations, 51, where he takes a similar position.
cf. Popper,Conjectures, 41, note 4, and Logic, 43.
For the history of Mendel's theory, see a. o. Olby,Origins of Mendelism, 1966. For “hawkweed”, see Batesen,Mendel's Principles of heredity, 1908.
See a. o. Batesen,Report to the Evolution Committee, 1902, for an account of these experiments.
See Musgrave,Falsification and its critics, 1973.
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Boon, L. Repeated tests and repeated testing: How to corroborate low level hypotheses. Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 10, 1–10 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01809023
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01809023