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Do We See Through a Social Microscope?: Credibility as a Vicarious Selector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Douglas Allchin
Douglas Allchin*
Affiliation:
University of Texas at El Paso
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Abstract

Credibility in a scientific community (sensu Shapin) is a vicarious selector (sensu Campbell) for the reliability of reports by individual scientists or institutions. Similarly, images from a microscope (sensu Hacking) are vicarious selectors for studying specimens. Working at different levels, the process of indirect reasoning and checking indicates a unity to experimentalist and sociological perspectives, along with a resonance of strategies for assessing reliability. The perspective sketched here can open dialogue between philosophical and sociological interpretations of science and resolves at least one tension regarding the “primary” factors by which scientists evaluate claims.

Type
Philosophy of Social Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1999 , 1999 , pp. S287 - S298
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso TX 79968.

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