Identifying Future-Proof Science Peter Vickers

Identifying Future-Proof Science – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780192862730,0192862731

Product details:

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0192862731
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0192862730
• Author(s): Peter Vickers

Is science getting at the truth? The sceptics – those who spread doubt about science – often employ a simple argument: scientists were ‘sure’ in the past, and then they ended up being wrong. Through a combination of historical investigation and philosophical-sociological analysis, Identifying Future-Proof Science defends science against this potentially dangerous scepticism. Indeed, we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever, so long as science continues. How do we identify future-proof claims? This appears to be a new question for science scholars, and not an unimportant one. Peter Vickers argues that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a ‘scientific fact’. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity.

Table contents:

List of Figures
1. What is future-proof science?
2. The historical challenge to future-proof science: the debate so far
3. Meckel’s successful prediction of gill slits: a case of misleading evidence?
4. The Tiktaalik ‘missing link’ novel predictive success and the evidence for evolution
5. The judgement of the scientific community: lessons from continental drift
6. Fundamental physics and the special vulnerability to underdetermination
7. Do we know how the dinosaurs died?
8. Scientific knowledge in a pandemic
9. Core argument, objections, replies, and outlook
Bibliography
Index

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