Identifying Future-Proof Science

Is science getting at the truth? The sceptics - those who spread doubt about science - often employ a simple argument: scientists were 'sure' in the past, and then they ended up being wrong. Through a combination of historical investigation and philosophical-sociological analysis, Identifying Future-Proof Science defends science against this potentially dangerous scepticism. Indeed, we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever, so long as science continues. How do we identify future-proof claims? This appears to be a new question for science scholars, and not an unimportant one. Peter Vickers argues that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a 'scientific fact'. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity.

Table of Contents:
Preface List of Figures 1: What is future-proof science? 2: The historical challenge to future-proof science: the debate so far 3: Meckel's successful prediction of gill slits: a case of misleading evidence? 4: The Tiktaalik 'missing link' novel predictive success and the evidence for evolution 5: The judgement of the scientific community: lessons from continental drift 6: Fundamental physics and the special vulnerability to underdetermination 7: Do we know how the dinosaurs died? 8: Scientific knowledge in a pandemic 9: Core argument, objections, replies, and outlook Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Peter Vickers is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) at the University of Durham, UK. His research interests include philosophy of astrobiology, social epistemology, and the relationships between evidence, facts, and truth. Vickers's first book, Understanding Inconsistent Science, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

Review :
How do scientists reach consensus? It's a simple question with increasing relevance in our polarized world. Peter Vickers draws from disparate examples in physics, anatomy, palaeontology, and virology to give an under-the-hood insight into how science really works. Although his subject is weighty, his conversational prose makes for both an enlightening and engaging read. Vickers' discussion of the Tiktaalik blends together scientific results with sophisticated and nuanced philosophical argumentation. It is to be commended for its focus on areas of science often neglected by philosophers. It's also admirably clear and accessible. This will be readable by undergraduate and postgraduate students. This rich but accessible, example-driven book relocates the realism debate from frontier physics to the sciences that most matter to us - shifting the burden of proof in the process. Peter Vickers has written just the book we need to move forward in the ongoing debate between scientific realism and its competitors. He investigates a wide range of heterogeneous historical examples and deploys them thoughtfully to challenge virtually all of the standard positions in that debate while making the case for a novel alternative proposal of his own. I suspect that the weight of the historical evidence he has gathered will force many contributors to the realism debate to substantially modify their own existing views-it certainly had that effect on me! Peter Vickers gives clear, convincing philosophical arguments and fascinating case studies to support bold predictions about which scientific findings will stand the test of time. For the last sixty years, history has often been interpreted as creating profound challenges for those who ascribe to more positive views about the rationality of scientific progress and the significance of scientific success. [...] Too often we hear hardened skeptics dismiss the authority of scientists on the grounds that science has been wrong before. It will be convenient in the future to direct such individuals to Vickers' book. Identifying Future-Proof Science poses interesting and novel questions and consistently pursues them thoroughly and illuminatingly.