Exceeding our grasp: science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives

In Exceeding Our Grasp , Stanford argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. INDICE: 1. Realism, Pessimism, and Underdetermination; 1.1 Scientific Realism: What's at Stake?; 1.2 Problems for Pessimism and Underdetermination; 1.3 Recurrent, Transient Underdetermination, and a New Induction over the History of Science; 2. Chasing Duhem: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives; 2.1 Duhem's Worry: Eliminative Inferences and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives; 2.2 Confirmation: Holism, Eliminative Induction, and Bayesianism; 2.3 Pessimism Revisited; 3. Darwin and Pangenesis: The Search for the Material Basis of Generation and Heredity; 3.1 Preliminary Worries; 3.2 Pangenesis: Darwin's 'Mad Dream' and 'Beloved Child'; 3.3 Darwin's Failure to Grasp Galton's CommonCause Mechanism for Inheritance; 4. Galton and the Strip Theory; 4.1 The Transfusion Experiments: 'A Dreadful Disappointment to Them Both'; 4.2 Galton's Strip Theory and Its Maturational, Invariant Conception of Inheritance; 4.3 Galton's Understanding of 'Correlation' and 'Variable Influences' in Development; 5. August Weismann's Theory of the Germ-Plasm; 5.1 German Biology at the End of the Nineteenth Century and Weismann's Theory of the Germ-Plasm; 5.2 GerminalSpecificity, the Search for a Mechanism of Cellular Differentiation and the Reservation of the Germ-Plasm; 5.4 Productive and Expendable Germinal Resources; 5.5 Conclusion: Lessons from History; 6. History Revisited: Pyrrhic Victories for Scientific Realism; 6.1 Realist Responses to the Historical Record; 6.2 Once More into the Breach: The Pessimistic Induction; 6.3 Reference without Descriptive Accuracy; 6.4 Diluting Approximate Truth; 7. Selective Confirmation and the Historical Record: 'Another Such Victory over the Romans'?; 7.1 Realism, Selective Confirmation, and Retrospective Judgments of Idleness; 7.2 Theoretical Posits: They Work Hard for the Money; 7.3 Trust and Betrayal; 7.4 Structural Realism and Retention; 7.5 Selective Confirmation: No Refuge for Realism;8. Science without Realism?; References; Index

• ISBN: 978-0-19-975153-2
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 248
• Fecha Publicación: 29/04/2010
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés