L&FP43: Big-S Science, Official Consensus and the pessimistic induction
It is highly relevant and timely to now ponder “Big-S Science and appeals to official consensus i/l/o the logic of the pessimistic induction and what warrant entails,” with “degrees of warrant, open mindedness and tolerance/diversity.” It is probably best to start with the pessimistic induction, here, via SEP: If one considers the history of scientific theories in any given discipline, what one typically finds is a regular turnover of older theories in favor of newer ones, as scientific knowledge develops. From the point of view of the present, most past theories must be considered false; indeed, this will be true from the point of view of most times. Therefore, by enumerative induction (that is, generalizing from these cases), surely theories Read More ›