Abstract
Recent work in the domain of the validation of complex computational models reveals that modelers of complex systems, particularly modelers of the earth’s climate, face a deeply entrenched form of confirmation holism. Confirmation holism, as it is traditionally understood, is the thesis that a single hypothesis cannot be tested in isolation, but that such tests always depend on other theories or hypotheses. It is always this collection of theories and hypotheses as a whole, says the thesis, that confront the tribunal of experience. But in contrast to the way the problem of confirmation holism is typically understood in the philosophy of science, the problems faced by climate scientists are not merely logical problems, and nor are they confined to the role of anything that can suitably be called auxiliary hypotheses. Rather, they are deep and entrenched problems that confront the scientist who works with models whose component parts interact in such a complex manner, and have such a complex history, that the scientist is unable to evaluate the worth of the parts in isolation
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Notes
- 1.
The word “attribution” also occurs in the prominent phrase “attribution of climate change” which stands for the question whether observed climatic change is caused by humans. We do not use the word in this way in this paper.
- 2.
“Appropriate” in the sense that, for the intended purpose of the model, the model is close enough to the world in the intended respects and to the intended degree of accuracy.
- 3.
The first version of Quine’s article (1951) did not mention Duhem.
- 4.
We are aware of the fact that this claim has some plausibility at the current point but not certainty. The latter calls for a more thorough historical-philosophical study.
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Lenhard, J., Winsberg, E. (2011). Holism and Entrenchment in Climate Model Validation. In: Carrier, M., Nordmann, A. (eds) Science in the Context of Application. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 274. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9051-5_8
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