Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022.

In the paper I explore the relations between a relatively new and quickly expanding branch of artificial intelligence –- the automated discovery systems –- and some new views advanced in the old debate over scientific realism. I focus my attention on one such system, GELL-MANN, designed in 1990 at Wichita State University. The program's task was to analyze elementary particle data available in 1964 and formulate an hypothesis (or hypotheses) about a `hidden', more simple structure of matter, or to put (...) it in contemporary terms –- the discovery of quarks. The central thesis of my paper is that systems like GELL-MANN not only discover (or rediscover) the hidden structure of matter, but also provide independent strong evidence in favor of scientific realism about entities involved in that structure. I make an attempt to show how an argument for scientific realism about sub-microscopic entities can be constructed that would parallel Ian Hacking's `argument from coincidence' presented with respect to microscopic objects in his famous book Representing and Intervening. (shrink)

The paper explores possible influences that recent developments in the field of a branch of AI called Automated Discovery Systems might have upon some aspects of the old debate between Francis Bacon’s inductivism and Karl Popper’s falsificationism. Francis Bacon advocates mechanical induction as the legitimate, infallible method of science, and Karl Popper proposes his famous falsificationist view, according to which science proceeds by subsequent conjectures and refutations, and the question about where scientific hypotheses come from neither needs, nor is capable (...) of, logical analysis. The traditional method of discussing such methodological debates relies on the analysis of various historical examples of discoveries in order to see how well the two models of scientific method account for them. (shrink)