Selective Scientific Realism and Truth-Transfer in Theories of Molecular Structure

This chapter examines theoretical advances in understanding molecular structures at the turn of the 20th century which resulted from the Blomstrand-Jørgensen/Werner debate about the structure of cobalt complexes. Both models made predictions testable through precipitation experiments, which eventually led to Werner’s model replacing the Blomstrand-Jørgensen model of cobalt complexes. We argue that this example of theory change fits within a selective scientific realist framework: namely, the factors which gave rise to the predictive success of the failed model survived in the theory that replaced it. We further argue that the lessons from this historical case can illuminate how two contemporary objections to realism—P. Kyle Stanford’s Problem of Unconceived Alternatives and Timothy D. Lyons’ pessimistic modus tollens argument—fall short as arguments against realism.

Unconceived alternatives and another argument for instrumentalism

Selective skepticism in relation to fundamental scientific theories and criticism of the inference to the best explanation as an eliminative approach to substantiate hypotheses, enable K. Stanford to interpret and combine in his own way the classical arguments against the scientific realism – the arguments of the pessimistic meta-induction and that of the underdetermination of theory by data. Despite the fact that his justification of the instrumentalist interpretation of scientific knowledge is just another version of the argument «from error», K. Stanford’s book should be recommended to a scientific realism could be. Reflection on the book: Stanford K. Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Oxford University Press, 2006.