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Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Peter Achinstein
Peter Achinstein*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

According to a standard view, predictions of new phenomena provide stronger evidence for a theory than explanations of old ones. More guardedly, a theory that predicts phenomena that did not prompt the initial formulation of that theory is better supported by those phenomena than is a theory by known phenomena that generated the theory in the first place. So say various philosophers of science, including William Whewell (1847) in the 19th century and Karl Popper (1959) in the 20th, to mention just two.

Stephen Brush takes issue with this on historical grounds. In a series of fascinating papers he argues that generally speaking scientists do not regard the fact that a theory predicts new phenomena, even ones of a kind totally different from those that prompted the theory in the first place, as providing better evidential support for that theory than is provided by already known facts explained by the theory.

Type
Part V. Do Explanations or Predictions (or Neither) Provide More Evidential Support for Scientific Theories?
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 156 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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