Common cause explanation and the search for a smoking gun
Common cause explanation and the search for a smoking gun
复制标题
DOI：
10.1130/2013.2502(01
复制
发表时间：
2013-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Cleland, Carol E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cleland, Carol E.
历史自然科学的假说通常涉及很久以前的单一事件和过程，例如，是什么导致了白垩纪末期的大灭绝这种情况的证据是通过在混乱、无法控制的自然世界中进行实地研究获得的。因为关于遥远过去的假设不能用实验科学的经典方式直接检验，历史科学有时被认为是劣等的。在早期工作的基础上，本文解释了这些论点的动机以及为什么它们是根本错误的。科学方法的传统版本（归纳主义和证伪主义）是基于对假设和观察之间的评价关系的严重缺陷的、一刀切的逻辑分析。然而，历史科学和实验科学的独特方法论反映了它们在证据情境中普遍存在的因果差异。历史科学家的证据推理是建立在共同原因的原则之上的，它断言，在过去的今天痕迹之间看似不可能的联系最好用共同原因来解释。共同原因原理的真理性建立在物理上普遍存在的、时间上不对称的因果关系之上：简而言之，现在包含过去的记录，但不包含未来的记录。从这个角度来看，历史学家实际上比古典实验主义者具有证据优势。
The hypotheses of historical natural science are typically concerned with long past, singular events and processes, e.g., what caused the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Evidence for such occurrences is acquired through field studies in the messy, uncontrollable world of nature. Because hypotheses about the remote past cannot be directly tested in the classical manner of experimental science, historical science is sometimes judged inferior. Building on earlier work, this essay explains the motivation for such arguments and why they are fundamentally mistaken. Traditional versions of the scientific method (inductivism and falsificationism) are based upon a deeply flawed, one-size-fits-all, logical analysis of the evaluative relation between hypothesis and observation. The distinctive methodologies of historical and experimental science, however, reflect pervasive causal differences in their evidential situations. The evidential reasoning of historical scientists is founded upon the principle of the common cause, which asserts that seemingly improbable associations among present-day traces of the past are best explained in terms of a common cause. The truth of the principle of the common cause rests upon a physically pervasive, time asymmetry of causation: In a nutshell, the present contains records of the past but not of the future. Viewed in this light historical scientists actually have an evidential advantage over classical experimentalists.