In works such as Particles and Waves (which won the Lakatos Award in 1993), The Book of Evidence, Scientific Evidence, and Evidence and Method, Achinstein developed a standard for scientific evidence that requires the high probability of an explanatory connection between evidence and hypothesis. You can say of a speculation, for instance: Why did you make that assumption?” And, then, how do we evaluate it? I say: Let’s evaluate a speculation as a speculation. No philosopher or scientist has defined it. “And in analytic philosophy, that’s what we try to do. “Speculation is a concept that needs to be clarified,” says Achinstein. But speculation has always possessed a certain slipperiness. Scientists must speculate, says Achinstein.
Professor of philosophy Peter Achinstein’s new book, Speculation: Within and About Science, is a powerful intervention in this timely debate. Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend saw even unfettered speculation as the indispensable engine of scientific progress.
Sir Isaac Newton famously argued speculation has no place at all in science. But this position is bookended by more radical views. So it is no surprise that scientists and philosophers find themselves wrestling with speculation’s proper role in science.Ī significant consensus exists for scientists speculating first, and then testing any hypothesis they make. Many dominant concepts in contemporary physics-such as string theory–are anchored in speculations that cannot be tested under present circumstances.
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