Naturalness and the Forward-Looking Justification of Scientific Principles

Philosophy of Science 90 (5):1050 - 1059 (2023)
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Abstract

It has been suggested that particle physics has reached the "dawn of the post-naturalness era." I provide an explanation of the current shift in particle physicists' attitude towards naturalness. I argue that the naturalness principle was perceived to be supported by the theories it has inspired. The potential coherence between major beyond the Standard Model (BSM) proposals and the naturalness principle led to an increasing degree of credibility of the principle among particle physicists. The absence of new physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has undermined the potential coherence and has led to the principle's loss of significance.

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Enno Fischer
Technische Universität Dresden

References found in this work

String Theory and the Scientific Method.Richard Dawid - 2013 - Cambridge University Press.
Dynamics of Reason.Michael Friedman - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (3):702-712.
Naturalness, the autonomy of scales, and the 125GeV Higgs.Porter Williams - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 51:82-96.

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