Identifying Future-Proof Science (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780198966227)

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. It is argued 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 per cent 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.

Author: Peter Vickers
ISBN-10: 0198966229
ISBN-13: 9780198966227
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/12/2025
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.50w x 1.10d