Scientific discoveries are often life-changing—think of antibiotics, vaccines, and the discovery of dark matter. But they take a lot of work to make, and it’s not always easy to understand what goes into the process of scientific research. The research that uncovered the presence of water on Mars, analyzed the metabolisms of fruit bats, and tracked the wound-healing abilities of ants was made possible by scientists who spent years working on other experiments involving everything from analyzing the effects of pollution to testing the limits of atom bombs.
One response to the demarcation criterion is that scientific discovery consists of two different contexts—one for discovery and one for justification—and that only the latter is amenable to philosophical analysis (section 2). A second response assumes that the logical pattern of scientific discovery—or, as some have put it, “the logic of abductive inferences”—is a proper subject of philosophy. Using resources from cognitive science, neuroscience, and computational research, these philosophers attempt to demystify the cognitive processes that generate new ideas by studying actual reasoning patterns in scientific practice.
Unlike the pragmatist logics of scientific discovery that were popular in the early 20th century, most recent methodologies of discovery employ the concept of an extended, iterative process that involves binding together facts, clarifying ideas, articulating tentative hypotheses, and testing them with observations and experiments. They also retain the distinction between the contexts of pursuit and justification, but they redefine the logical patterns that characterize the development and articulation of new ideas.
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