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My long standing interest in induction and confirmation first led
to a series of studies of what is called "demonstrative induction" or
"eliminative induction." It is a powerful means of displaying the
import of evidence, fully able to defeat the common but mistaken
wisdom of the thesis of the necessary underdetermination of theory by
all possible evidence. The most interesting case I have examined was
its use to establish the necessity of quantum discontinuity in the
1910s on the basis of the observed spectrum of black body radiation.
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"The Determination of Theory by Evidence: The Case
for Quantum Discontinuity 1900-1915," Synthese, 97 ,
1-31. Download
"Science and Certainty," Synthese, 99, pp.3-22.
"Eliminative Induction as a Method of Discovery: Einstein's Discovery
of General Relativity," in J. Leplin (ed.) The Creation of Ideas
in Physics: Studies for a Methodology of Theory Construction.
Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp.29-69.
"How We Know About Electrons," pp. 67- 97 in R. Nola and H. Sankey,
eds., After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend; Recent Issues in Theories
of Scientific Method. Dordrecht Kluwer. Download.
With Jonathan Bain. "What Should Philosophers of Science Learn from
the History of the Electron." pp. 451-65 in J. Z. Buchwald and A.
Warwick, Histories of the Electron. Cambridge MA: MIT Press,
2001. Download.
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Here is an illustration of how it is possible in a principled way
to devise a strict weakening of the probability calculus that is
non-additive and not prone to the Bayesian's notorious problem of the
priors. |
"The Theory of Random Propositions,"
Erkenntnis, 41, 1994, pp. 325-352.
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