•  78
    Touching Reality
    Iai News
    Dark matter has never been detected, yet it is a key part of the dominant theory of cosmology. An alternative theory, MOND, is empirically equivalent and more successful at making predictions. But the fact that it has no place for the existence of dark matter is a problem for scientific realists who see science as building on past theories.
  •  325
    Cosmological Realism
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C): 193-208. 2021.
    I discuss the relevance of the current predicament in cosmology to the debate over scientific realism. I argue that the existence of two, empirically successful but ontologically inconsistent cosmological theories presents difficulties for the realist position.
  •  437
    The scientific method from a philosophical perspective
    ESO on-Line Conference: The Present and Future of Astronomy. 2022.
    A methodology of science must satisfy two requirements: (i) It must be ampliative: the theories which it generates must make statements that go far beyond any data or observations that may have motivated those theories in the first place. (ii) It must be epistemically probative: it must somehow provide a warrant for believing that the theories so produced are correct, or at least partially correct, even if they can never be fully confirmed. These two requirements pull in opposite directions, and…Read more
  •  153
    MOND and Methodology
    In Parusniková Zuzana & Merritt David (eds.), Karl Popper's Science and Philosophy, Springer. pp. 69-96. 2021.
    In Logik der Forschung (1934) and later works, Karl Popper proposed a set of methodological rules for scientists. Among these were requirements that theories should evolve in the direction of increasing content, and that new theories should only be accepted if some of their novel predictions are experimentally confirmed. There are currently two, viable theories of cosmology: the standard cosmological model, and a theory due to Mordehai Milgrom called MOND. Both theories can point to successes an…Read more
  •  26
    Dark matter is a fundamental component of the standard cosmological model, but in spite of four decades of increasingly sensitive searches, no-one has yet detected a single dark-matter particle in the laboratory. An alternative cosmological paradigm exists: MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics). Observations explained in the standard model by postulating dark matter are explained in MOND by proposing a modification of Newton's laws of motion. Both MOND and the standard model have had successes and …Read more
  •  269
    Feyerabend’s rule and dark matter
    Synthese 199 (3-4): 8921-8942. 2021.
    Paul Feyerabend argued that theories can be faced with experimental anomalies whose refuting character can only be recognized by developing alternatives to the theory. The alternate theory must explain the experimental results without contrivance and it must also be supported by independent evidence. I show that the situation described by Feyerabend arises again and again in experiments or observations that test the postulates in the standard cosmological model relating to dark matter. The alter…Read more
  •  300
    Cosmology and convention
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 57 41-52. 2017.
    I argue that some important elements of the current cosmological model are 'conventionalist’ in the sense defined by Karl Popper. These elements include dark matter and dark energy; both are auxiliary hypotheses that were invoked in response to observations that falsified the standard model as it existed at the time.
  •  12
    Karl Popper's Science and Philosophy (edited book)
    with Parusniková Zuzana
    Springer. 2021.
    Of all philosophers of the 20th century, few built more bridges between academic disciplines than Karl Popper. He contributed to a wide variety of fields in addition to the epistemology and the theory of scientific method for which he is best known. This book illustrates and evaluates the impact, both substantive and methodological, that Popper has had in the natural and mathematical sciences. The topics selected include quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, mathematical logic, sta…Read more