Tomasen Haley (Wycliffe Hall): 'The no-alternatives argument and social epistemology in scientific communities'
Abstract: Current theories in fundamental physics (e.g. string theory) are at the moment, and will be for some time, untestable: the empirical predictions they make diverge from their predecessor theories only at extremely high energies – energies far beyond what we can test experimentally.
To the end of assessing in the meantime whether these currently untestable theories are viable, non-empirical methods of theory confirmation have been suggested – notably, the no-alternatives argument or the NAA: that if, despite much searching and effort on behalf of the scientific community, no alternatives to theory X have been found, X is likely to be viable. This inference is motivated by the thought that if there were alternative theories to X, then the scientific community would (likely) have found such alternatives.
I will explore the ways in which this fact about the scientific community (that no alternatives have been found) could instead be explained by various social features of the scientific community. I will suggest that this imposes a constraint on the NAA – that the NAA is sound only if these relevant social features of the scientific community are shown not to obtain.
