underdetermination

An inference can be weaker or stronger depending on how much evidence points to a particular conclusion rather than to another one, and also on the number of possible alternative solutions (if there are too many competing hypotheses the evidence may simply not be sufficient to discriminate among them, a situation that philosophers call the underdetermination of theories by the data).

Scientific Blogging 2009

Our efforts to confirm scientific theories, he suggests, are no less threatened by what Larry Sklar (1975, 1981) has called “transient” underdetermination, that is, theories which are not empirically equivalent but are equally (or at least reasonably) well confirmed by all the evidence we happen to have in hand at the moment, so long as this transient predicament is also

Underdetermination of Scientific Theory Stanford, Kyle 2009

The difficulty with any and all inductive inferences is that they are subject to often massive underdetermination, that is, the evidence can never establish the truth of any particular inference to the exclusion of all competing, non-consistent inferences.

Archive 2006-12-01 Mike L 2006

The difficulty with any and all inductive inferences is that they are subject to often massive underdetermination, that is, the evidence can never establish the truth of any particular inference to the exclusion of all competing, non-consistent inferences.

Ampliative development of doctrine II: a reply to Scott Carson Mike L 2006

And Duhem's argument for what we would call underdetermination of theory basically insists that we can come up with any number of mathematical ways to organize any set of generalizations from experiment; we are limited in this only by the ingenuity of physicists and mathematicians.

Various and Sundry 2005

And Duhem's argument for what we would call underdetermination of theory basically insists that we can come up with any number of mathematical ways to organize any set of generalizations from experiment; we are limited in this only by the ingenuity of physicists and mathematicians.

Archive 2005-05-01 2005

The fact that their algorithm converges on unique, self-consistent laws, seems to undermine the purported underdetermination of theory by data, a popular bone of contention in the philosophy of science.

Archive 2009-04-01 Gordon McCabe 2009

So far your presentation of your model suffers from the same underdetermination.

A Third Choice (ID Hypothesis) 2007

Feminists, religious apologists including “creation scientists”, counterculturalists, neoconservatives, and a host of other curious fellow-travelers have claimed to find crucial grist for their mills in, for instance, the avowed incommensurability and underdetermination of scientific theories.

Science, Non-Science, and Pseudoscience - The Panda's Thumb 2009

Feminists, religious apologists including “creation scientists”, counterculturalists, neoconservatives, and a host of other curious fellow-travelers have claimed to find crucial grist for their mills in, for instance, the avowed incommensurability and underdetermination of scientific theories.

Steve Fuller shows us what he's made of - The Panda's Thumb 2009