Prediction (forthcoming In The Philosophy Of Science: An .
Prediction(forthcoming in The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, ed. JessicaPfeifer and Sahotra Sarkar. New York: Routledge, Inc.)Jeff Barrett and P. Kyle StanfordDepartment of Logic and Philosophy of ScienceUniversity of California, IrvineJeff Barrett 4/29/04 1:30 PMDeleted: The entry has many uses of the firstperson. Please remove all of those and move entirelyto third person. (I have not marked these.)Social Sciences 9/25/05 7:05 AMPlease remove all gender-specific language. (I haveFormatted:Font:Notnotmarked all ofthese.) BoldThis can be shortened considerably, particularly thethird section, which has a lot of orthogonal material.IntroductionWhether one predicts rainfall, recessions, or racetrack winners, predicting anevent or state of affairs often, perhaps even typically, involves saying that it will happenbefore it occurs, and this common association is presumably responsible for the idea thatpredictions must be about the future. But in scientific contexts one often characterizes atheory’s predictions as its implications or entailments without regard for temporalconstraints, as when one says a successful theory of cosmology predicts the existence ofcosmic background radiation at all times. The language of prediction is also used todescribe declarative assertions about past and present events made in light of a theory, aswhen evolutionary theory was used to predict that marsupial mammals must once havelived in what is now Antarctica and left fossilized remains there A temporal elementmight be preserved by insisting that these are really cases of ‘postdiction’ or‘retrodiction’ or even shorthand predictions about future evidential findings. Butperhaps these comfortable extensions of predictive language more naturally suggest thatthe central element in prediction is not temporal but epistemic. To predict is to make aclaim about matters that are not already known, not necessarily about events that have notyet transpired.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:21 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:21 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:22 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:22 AMDeleted: We also use tJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:18 AMDeleted: we useP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:42 AMDeleted: make the prediction, subsequentlyconfirmed,Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:18 AMDeleted: to predictJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:18 AMOf course prediction cannot be as simple as that, because one way to knowsomething is to predict it correctly on the basis of a well-confirmed theory. Predictivelanguage seems most appropriate in cases when one makes claims about unknownmatters using tools (like inductive generalization, scientific theorizing, or sheerguesswork) that can be contrasted with more direct methods of ascertaining the sameinformation (like simply observing in the right place and/or at the right time and/or underthe right conditions, or looking for physical traces of some past state of affairs).Although specific philosophical and scientific conceptions of what is immediately givenin experience or known directly have shifted over time, predictive language hascontinuously respected the fundamental idea that a prediction is a claim about unknownmatters of fact whose truth or falsity has not already been independently ascertained bysome more direct method than that used to make the prediction itself (seePHENOMENALISM; PHYSICALISM).As this account suggests, successful prediction is valuable because it goes beyondwhat is already known most directly, but this same feature renders prediction inherentlyrisky. The most interesting and useful predictions typically concern matters to which1Deleted: there must be transitional fossilsconnecting reptiles and mammalsJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:19 AMDeleted: (bad example as stated—there was noactual transition from reptiles to mammals). I thinkyou can fix this ambiguity by simply adding thephrase ‘to their common ancestor.’ However,reptilia are not a “natural,” i.e. monophyletic,grouping, so I would change it to some other group.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:23 AMDeleted: ourJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:23 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:23 AMDeleted: ourJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:24 AMDeleted:Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:24 AMDeleted: we
more direct intersubjective access is ultimately expected, so prediction ischaracteristically something that one can be caught out on given the shared standards ofthe community of inquirers.This idea that scientific prediction involves risk led Karl Popper (1963) to singleout the willingness to make risky predictions as what distinguishes genuine science frompseudoscience (see POPPER, KARL RAIMUND). Pseudoscientific theories, hesuggested, typically include the resources to explain any outcome in their intendeddomain of application after it is known. Marxist history, Freudian psychoanalysis, andAdlerian ‘individual’ psychology were among Popper’s favorite examples. He urged thatsuch theories should not be regarded as genuinely confirmed by passing tests that theycould not possibly have failed. Confirmation, or for Popper ‘corroboration’, requires thata theory succeed where it might have failed (see CORROBORATION). Thus, Popperargued, genuine science requires theories that rule out some states of affairs and makerisky predictions about unknown cases, exposing themselves to the serious possibility ofrefutation.In empirical science, the requirement of shared epistemic access to the success orfailure of a prediction means that the fate of a prediction is typically decided in the courtof experiment and observation.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:25 AMDeleted: we haveJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:24 AMDeleted: we can discover that they are wrongwhen they are:Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:27 AMDeleted:Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:30 AMDeleted: ourJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:30 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:30 AMDeleted: WeJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:31 AMDeleted: becomeJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:31 AMDeleted: weThe problems of inductionJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:31 AMDeleted: weThe Scottish Empiricist David Hume may have posed the problem of the rationaljustification for prediction in its starkest form. Hume’s empiricism led him to regard themost general problem about knowledge to be how we come to know anything whatsoever“beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory” (1977[1748], 16). Hume pointed out that the mere occurrence of one event or sense impressionnever deductively implies that another will occur. From this he concluded that it must beon the basis of experience that one learns which particular events reliably cause, precede,or are otherwise associated with others. One is thereby able to make predictions aboutevents or states of affairs beyond those immediately perceived (see EMPRICISM).But how can one possibly justify assuming that the regular associations or evencausal relationships that have been noted between past events will persist into the future?Again there is no logical contradiction in supposing that things will change. That the sunwill not rise tomorrow, Hume notes (1977 [1748], 15), is no less intelligible a propositionthan that it will rise—indeed, the future will almost certainly be quite unlike the past ininnumerable particular respects. And any attempt to justify this assumption by appeal topast experience of uniformity in nature, Hume claims, will be “going in a circle, andtaking that for granted, which is the very point in question” (1977 [1748], 23). That thefuture has been like the past in the past only constitutes evidence about what one’s ownfuture will be like if one already assumes that how things have been in the past is a goodguide to what they will be like in the future, which was the very assumption needed tojustify the inferential practice in the first place.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:32 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:32 AMDeleted: we believe thatP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:47 AMDeleted: many waysJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:33 AMDeleted: ourJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:36 AMDeleted: ourP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:49 AMDeleted:Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:35 AMDeleted: weP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:49 AMDeleted: sJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:37 AMDeleted: and thisP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:50 AMDeleted: iJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:36 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:36 AMDeleted: our2
Efforts to solve or dissolve Hume’s problem of induction are a topic of continuingdebate (see INDUCTION, PROBLEM OF). For his part, Hume concluded that there canbe no rational justification whatsoever for predictions concerning unexperienced mattersof fact, and he took this to illustrate that reason or rational justification does not playanything like the role usually supposed in the cognitive lives of human beings. In his‘skeptical solution’ to the problem, Hume argues that what generates expectations aboutunknown cases is a primitive or instinctive psychological disposition he calls custom,which is not itself mediated by any process of reasoning at all. Custom leads one,automatically and without reflection, to expect an event of type B on the appearance of anevent of type A just in case B’s have followed A’s reliably in the past. Thus, Humeoffers a naturalistic explanation of the psychological mechanism by which empiricalpredictions are made but not any rational justification for this practice. But this is not tosay that it is a mistake to rely on custom: not only do we have no choice in the matter,Hume argues, but “Custom is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alonewhich renders our experience useful to us .Without the influence of custom, we shouldbe entirely ignorant of every matter of fact, beyond what is immediately present to thememory and senses” (1977 [1748], 29). The fact that there is no rational justification forsuch an important and useful cognitive function, he suggests, simply illustrates thatNature has secured “so necessary an act of the mind, by some instinct or mechanicaltendency” rather than leaving it “to the fallacious deductions of our reason” (1977 [1748],37). The most central aspects of human cognitive lives, he suggests, are neither productsof, nor even subject to reason. Instead they are “a species of natural instincts, which noreasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able, either to produce, or toprevent” (1977 [1748], 30).A further problem of inductive justification, arguably anticipated in Hume’streatment, is clearly articulated by Nelson Goodman (Goodman 1954). Here the problemis not how to justify the belief that unexperienced cases will resemble experienced ones,but how to understand, categorize or describe experienced cases so as to know just whatit would be like for unexperienced cases to resemble them. Present inductive evidencefully supports the claim that all emeralds are green, for example, but it equally wellsupports the claim that they are all grue, where ‘grue’ means ‘green if first observedbefore 2050 and blue if not observed before’. Those who believe that emeralds are gruerather than green, however, will have expectations concerning the appearance ofemeralds that diverge significantly from the customary one starting in 2050. Nor can onesay that the predicate ‘grue’ is somehow artificially conjunctive or really disguises achange, Goodman argues, for it is only relative to a set of predicates that regards greenand blue as natural categories that it does so. If one takes ‘grue’ and, say, ‘bleen’(understood as ‘blue if first observed before 2050, and green if not observed before2050’) as natural or primitive predicates for a language, it will be ‘green’ that must bedefined in an artificially conjunctive way (i.e. ‘grue if first observed before 2050 andbleen if not). But of course, it was the choice of ‘green’ and not ‘grue’ as natural,primitive, or singularly appropriate for law-like generalization for which a defense wassought in the first place. Goodman thus argues that any attempt to use inductive evidenceto project future or unknown cases relies on a set of entrenched predicates, and it is3P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:49 AMDeleted: ;Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:39 AMDeleted: us us we make we makea in ing our. [1]P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:53 AMDeleted: otJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:43 AMDeleted: , our reasoning faculties. [2]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:43 AMDeleted: Our i 1. [3]Jessica Pfeifer 10/22/03 8:33 PMDeleted: first afterwards’. [4]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:44 AMDeleted: What you had wasn’t quite right, since itleaves out those never observed. ourown 1 we we 1 1 1 that we todefend. [5]
controversial whether the entrenchment of one set of predicates rather than another canbe rationally defended. Like Hume’s custom, Goodman’s entrenchment may offer a kindof naturalistic explanation of how humans come to make the predictions they do, but notone that seeks or provides any rational justification for the practice.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:50 AMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:50 AMDeleted: come toJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:50 AMDeleted: that weModels of empirical predictionJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:51 AMDeleted: ourHume’s empiricist approach to the foundations of knowledge proved attractive tosuch later theorists of science as the logical empiricists, many of whom held that the aimof empirical science was to determine the dependence of observable phenomena on oneanother; indeed, some famously insisted that every meaningful statement derived itsmeaning from its implications regarding observable phenomena (see COGNITIVESIGNIFICANCE; VERIFICATIONISM). On this broad view, empirical predictionswere required to be statements (i) in a specified observation language, (ii) entailed byone’s theory together with one’s past observations, (iii) concerning unobserved butobservable phenomena. It is important to recognize, however, that the logical empiricistsdid not always agree even among themselves about how to characterize the nature ofempirical predictions. To take just one example of controversy, in Carnap’s Aufbau(1967) the empirical predictions made by a scientific theory do not concern the “given”of sense experience but rather concern structural features of the intersubjective domainconstructed from experience (see CARNAP, RUDOLF).Carl Hempel’s (1965) model of scientific knowledge was both deeply influencedby the earlier logical empiricist tradition and itself widely influential in turn. In thesimplest, deductive-nomological, case predictions and explanations are logical deductionsof the formJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:51 AMDeleted: sJeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:37 AMDeleted: Philosophical models of empiricalP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:57 AMDeleted: suchJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:53 AMDeleted:P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:58 AMDeleted: . ManyJeff Barrett 4/28/04 9:52 AMDeleted: positivistsP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:58 AMDeleted: thisJeff Barrett 4/29/04 10:17 AMDeleted: typicalP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 10:58 AMDeleted: illP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:02 AMDeleted: , however,P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:00 AMDeleted: not evenC1 C2 ! CkJeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:22 AMDeleted:L1 L2 ! LrP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:00 AMEDeleted: always agreed concerningP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:01 AMDeleted: Iwhere C1 C2 ! Ck are statements of particular occurrences (e.g., the positions andmomenta of certain celestial bodies at a time), L1 L2 ! Lr are general laws (e.g.,those of Newtonian mechanics), and E is the sentence stating whatever is being, inHempelian terms, explained, predicted, or postdicted (e.g. the time of the next solareclipse). Hempel also allows for what he calls inductive-statistical predictions where theargument has the same basic form, but the laws invoked are statistical probabilitystatements. Here a specific event is not logically implied by the boundary conditions andlaws, but only supported to a certain degree (1965, 175 -177). For Hempel, theconclusion of any argument of this form qualifies as a prediction if E refers to anoccurrence at a time later than that at which the argument is offered. A fascinating andcontroversial feature of this account is the symmetry it asserts between prediction and4P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:01 AMDeleted: , for example,Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:35 AMDeleted:Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:34 AMDeleted: Among the most influential of the logicalempiricists was Rudolf Carnap, whose earlysystematic work took elementary experiences, the“given” of sense experience, to be both the basicelements from which all of the objects of scientificknowledge are constructed and the epistemicfoundation of all empirical prediction (Carnap 1967).He held that such experiences are themselvesunanalyzable, but that one could make statements. [6]about these elementary experiences that are alsoSahotra Sarkar 10/15/03 2:37 PMepistemically foundational. In order for thisDeleted:approach topositivistcapture the intersubjective and publiclyaccessible character of scientific prediction, an agentmust establish a structural correspondence betweenthe systemthat she (please remove all genderspecific language) constructs from her experience(i.e., her world) and the systems that she constructsfor other observerswithin her world (i.e. herconstruction of the world of observerpartial system within her own worldis itself a) (1967, 224).
Sahotra Sarkar 10/15/03 2:36 PMDeleted: ToJeff Barrett 4/29/04 1:22 PMDeleted: we it. [7]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:40 AMexplanation: to explain an event by appeal to a set of laws and conditions is simply toshow that it could have been predicted using them (see HEMPEL, CARL GUSTAV).More recent accounts of empirical prediction have moved progressively furtheraway from the logical empiricists’ original requirement of a neutral “sense-datum”language for reporting observation or representing experience. On Bas van Fraassen’sconstructive empiricism, for example, presenting an empirical theory involves specifyinga model for the language of the theory: a domain of objects together with a description ofthe properties they can have and the relations they can bear to one another. In presentingthe theory, one also specifies those substructures of the model that are candidates forrepresenting observable phenomena. The theory is empirically adequate just in case theappearances given in phenomenal experience are isomorphic to the observablesubstructures of the model (van Fraassen1980, 64; see EMPIRICISM;INSTRUMENTALISM). As in the empiricist tradition more generally, then, thedistinction between observable and unobservable phenomena does significant work here,but this distinction is not drawn in linguistic terms. Rather, for van Fraassen, thedistinction is supposed to be grounded in the actual observational capacities of humanobservers, and it is natural science itself which tells us what those observationalcapacities are (see PHENOMENALISM; PERCEPTION).The naturalistic suggestion that observability is a question to be settled by naturalscience is perhaps promising. But how could one’s best theories determine what isobservable? If they characterize important features of the natural world and one’s placein it, then they also might be expected to specify how and the circumstances under whichreliable inferences from measurements are possible for human observers. It ispresumably in just those circumstances for which one’s theories indicate thatmeasurements will provide the resources for reliable inferences about the presence orabsence of some entity that one is inclined to characterize the entity as observable. Onsuch a naturalistic view, an empirical prediction might in principle concern any feature ofthe world that one’s best theories indicate can be reliably detected.But herein also lies a problem for the naturalist. What one judges to beobservable will depend on one’s current best understanding of the natural world, but thisbest understanding will itself depend on what one believes one has observed. Since thenaturalist’s account of what is observable itself depends on the theories the naturalistaccepts, observations cannot test the truth or falsity of theories in any direct or simpleway. As W. V. O. Quine (1951) and others have noted, one can always respond to afailed test of a theory by blaming background assumptions, presumably including theassumptions used to characterize what empirical observations are and the conditionsunder which they can be reliably made, rather than admitting that a particular predictionwas mistaken. But if empirical predictions need never be given up, then they cannot,strictly speaking, test the theory that makes them.In practice, however, this general epistemic problem is more often a point of logicrather than a real obstacle to naturalistic inquiry, as Quine himself noted in developinghis own naturalistic position. Testing a given empirical prediction to the satisfaction of5Deleted: A more rP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:25 AMDeleted: RJeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:42 AMDeleted: characterizationP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:24 AMDeleted: yet sic. [8]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:45 AMDeleted: of the relationship between theories.and[9]their predictions is given in constructiveP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:26 AMDeleted: to present is to specify. [10]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:49 AMDeleted: empiricism (see EMPIRICISM; . [11]INSTRUMENTALISM). On this account, acceptingP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:29 AMa theory involves nothing more than believing thatDeleted:what it says hereabout observable phenomena is true(van1980, 57).10:30 A then,Jeff Fraassen,Barrett 4/29/04AM mustDeleted: . In order to distinguish observable.and[12]unobservable aspects of the natural world, vanP.KyleStanford5/4/0411:27AMFraassen adopts what he calls a semantic approach.Deleted:seeempiricalEMPIRICISM;To present antheory is to specify a .model[13]INSTRUMENTALISM; oftheBarretttheory: a4/28/04domain ofobjectsAMtogether with aJeff10:51description of the properties they can have and ns theycanagain,bear totheoneanother.In presentingorthogonalto predictionand will besubstructurestreated in PHofthetheory,Stanfordonealso specifiesP. Kyle5/4/04 those11:27 AMits model that are candidates for representing theDeleted:andobservable phenomena.And a theory is empiricallyadequateif the4/28/04appearancesgivenAMin our phenomenalJeffBarrett10:52experience are isomorphic to the observableDeleted: .substructures of the model (1980, 64).Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:03 AMTo identifytheory’sempirical predictions,Deleted:wearegard a our tellus w .then,[15]one must know how to specify the observableP.KyleStanford5/4/0411:34AMsubstructures of its model. For van Fraassen, thisdistinction is , and in general it is that theseDeleted:specifyare. A kitchen table is supposed to be observable,Jeff11:04whileBarretta barium4/28/04atom is not.But AMeven this simplecontrast illustratesDeleted:tell us why the distinction is difficult todraw in a principled way, especially if we appeal toP.Stanford5/4/04Our11:34AM tell usour Kylebest scientifictheories.best theoriesDeleted:about natureof the .that when a somethingsingle bariumatom is illuminatedby[16]abright laser it can be made to scatter an amount ofJeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:54 AMlight that is easily detectable by the naked humanDeleted:our ourus weeye. And thephysicaltheories tellprocess involvedhereareis.able[17]tomake reliable our Perhapsthiscapturesthepreciselyanalogoustohowour icidea behindobservable-unobservablethe observationofthea kitchentable when light isDeleted:Itits constituentdistinctionall: scattered byafteratoms. Van Fraassenrepliesthat a distinctiondegreeof observability isJeffBarrett4/28/04 in10:53AMstill a distinction. But even so, it remains unclear notDeleted: it isonly just how a distinction of degree should be. [18]drawnhere,but also thatit can11:38be drawnP.KyleStanford5/4/04AMin such awayas to doos inthe epistemic work expected of it. TheDeleted:.given[19]upshot is that it remains puzzling just what predictionson this account.Deleted: our tell us our we are. [20]P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:36 AMDeleted: say that i. [21]Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 10:55 AMDeleted: s tell usJeff Barrett 4/29/04 10:45 AMDeleted: The circularity inherent in this position . [22]is open to the objection that it is impossible to verifyP.KyleStanford5/4/0411:32AMor falsify a particular prediction once and forDeleted:are needed s reminded us weall referenceP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:42 AMDeleted: as Quine himself noted,Jeff Barrett 4/29/04 10:59 AMDeleted: isP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:33 AM. [23]Jeff Barrett 4/29/04 10:59 AMP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:44 AMJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:12 AM. [24]P. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 11:33 AM
the scientific community requires only that there be a sufficient context of sharedbackground assumptions to provide the understanding of and the rules for the empiricaltest. The understanding and rules might be implicit, they might change over time, andthey might be subject to challenge, but none of this undermines the possibility of testingpredictions in principle and, consequently, the possibility of testing the theories that makethem. That empirical predictions are in fact often taken by the scientific community to bethoroughly tested and that theories are in fact accepted or rejected on this basis suggeststhat there are often, perhaps typically, unambiguous standards for checking them.Jeff Barrett 4/29/04 11:01 AMDeleted: seJessica Pfeifer 10/22/03 8:46 PMDeleted: ,The Epistemic Significance of PredictionJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:11 AMAs the preceding discussion of the relationship between theories and theirpredictions suggests, testing a theory’s predictions is often taken to be a crucial aspect ofhow it is confirmed or disconfirmed. The most persistent question here concerns whetherthe ability to predict novel phenomena is of fundamental significance in the testing andconfirmation of specific theories in the special sciences; that is, whether it counts in favorof a theory’s confirmation that it has predicted novel phenomena rather than merelyaccommodating, explaining, or anticipating phenomena already known to occur. In thiscontext the relevant sense of prediction involves not anticipating when and wherefamiliar phenomena will recur but rather discovering the existence of phenomena unlikethose that are already familiar.Jeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:13 AMThe roots of this debate reach back at least to the foundations of modern scienceitself; perhaps its most famous iteration pitted William Whewell against John Stuart Mill,who expressed amazement at Whewell’s view thatDeleted: You probably should note that Quine isalso a naturalist.Deleted:[THE LAST SECTION SHOULD BEJessicaPfeifer 10/22/03 8:48 PMSIGNIFICANTLY SHORTENED TO HELPDeleted:,REMAIN WITHINTHE WORD LIMIT.]Sahotra Sarkar 10/15/03 8:48 PMDeleted: orJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:15 AMDeleted: (I added “anticipating” to get a smoothtransition to the next sentence.)Jeff Barrett 4/29/04 1:22 PMDeleted: withP. Kyle Stanford 5/4/04 8:10 PMDeleted: whichan hypothesis is entitled to a more favourable reception, if besides accountingfor all the facts previously known, it has led to the anticipation and prediction ofothers which experience afterwards verified. Such predictions and theirfulfillment are, indeed, well calculated to impress the uninformed But it isstrange that any considerable stress should be laid upon such a coincidence bypersons of scientific attainments (System of Logic, III, xiv, 6; cited in Musgrave1974, 2).Mill’s amazement notwithstanding, versions of this Whewellian intuition have beendefended by ‘persons of scientific attainments’ as otherwise diverse as Clavius,Descartes, Leibniz, Huygens, Peirce, and Duhem. By contrast Mill himself defended theview that confirmation depends only on the match between a theory’s entailments and thephenomena. While decidedly less popular, this competing view has also recruitedinfluential champions, such as John Maynard Keynes (see Giere 1983, Section 3).Enthusiasts have sometimes gone so far as to claim that only predictions of novelphenomena are of any confirmational significance at all or that any prediction of a novelphenomenon is of greater confirmational significance than any amount ofaccommodation of existing evidence. But the claim of a special confirmationalsignificance for prediction does not require such extremes. For prediction as such to6Jeff Barrett 4/29/04 1:22 PMDeleted: weJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:15 AMDeleted: at leastJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:18 AMDeleted: While decidedly less popular, theMillian view has also had influential champions,such asJeff Barrett 4/28/04 11:18 AMDeleted:
enjoy a special confirmational privilege it seems sufficient that predicting a givenphenomenon provides (or would have provided) greater confirmation for a theory thatdoes so than the mere accommodation of that same phenomenon does (or would have).A view having this consequence, including the extremes just described, may be describedas a form of predictivism. Predictivist themes have recently loomed large in debates overthe progressiveness of research programs, the adequacy of various approaches toconfirmation (especially Bayesianism), and the so-called miracle defense of scientificrealism.Imre Lakatos is widely credited with having reintroduced this concern over theconfirmational significance of novel prediction, specifically in connection with his‘methodology of research programs’ (see LAKATOS, IMRE). Lakatos’s bold claim wasthat it is only the ability of the successive theories in a research program to makesuccessful novel predictions that bears on its progressiveness or acceptability. But evenLakatos’s own work includes several competing lines of thought about the nature ofnovelty (see Gardner 1982, 2-3). At times he seems to construe the novelty of aprediction for a theory purely temporally, though his most famous account holds novelprediction to consist in predicting phenomena that are “improbable
connecting reptiles and mammals Deleted: (bad example as stated—there was no actual transition from reptiles to mammals). I think you can fix this ambiguity by simply adding the phrase ‘to their common ancestor.’ However, reptilia are not a “natural,” i.e. monophyletic, groupin
May 02, 2018 · D. Program Evaluation ͟The organization has provided a description of the framework for how each program will be evaluated. The framework should include all the elements below: ͟The evaluation methods are cost-effective for the organization ͟Quantitative and qualitative data is being collected (at Basics tier, data collection must have begun)
Silat is a combative art of self-defense and survival rooted from Matay archipelago. It was traced at thé early of Langkasuka Kingdom (2nd century CE) till thé reign of Melaka (Malaysia) Sultanate era (13th century). Silat has now evolved to become part of social culture and tradition with thé appearance of a fine physical and spiritual .
On an exceptional basis, Member States may request UNESCO to provide thé candidates with access to thé platform so they can complète thé form by themselves. Thèse requests must be addressed to esd rize unesco. or by 15 A ril 2021 UNESCO will provide thé nomineewith accessto thé platform via their émail address.
̶The leading indicator of employee engagement is based on the quality of the relationship between employee and supervisor Empower your managers! ̶Help them understand the impact on the organization ̶Share important changes, plan options, tasks, and deadlines ̶Provide key messages and talking points ̶Prepare them to answer employee questions
Dr. Sunita Bharatwal** Dr. Pawan Garga*** Abstract Customer satisfaction is derived from thè functionalities and values, a product or Service can provide. The current study aims to segregate thè dimensions of ordine Service quality and gather insights on its impact on web shopping. The trends of purchases have
Chính Văn.- Còn đức Thế tôn thì tuệ giác cực kỳ trong sạch 8: hiện hành bất nhị 9, đạt đến vô tướng 10, đứng vào chỗ đứng của các đức Thế tôn 11, thể hiện tính bình đẳng của các Ngài, đến chỗ không còn chướng ngại 12, giáo pháp không thể khuynh đảo, tâm thức không bị cản trở, cái được
Le genou de Lucy. Odile Jacob. 1999. Coppens Y. Pré-textes. L’homme préhistorique en morceaux. Eds Odile Jacob. 2011. Costentin J., Delaveau P. Café, thé, chocolat, les bons effets sur le cerveau et pour le corps. Editions Odile Jacob. 2010. Crawford M., Marsh D. The driving force : food in human evolution and the future.
Le genou de Lucy. Odile Jacob. 1999. Coppens Y. Pré-textes. L’homme préhistorique en morceaux. Eds Odile Jacob. 2011. Costentin J., Delaveau P. Café, thé, chocolat, les bons effets sur le cerveau et pour le corps. Editions Odile Jacob. 2010. 3 Crawford M., Marsh D. The driving force : food in human evolution and the future.
