Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T15:15:09.768Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Discussion: Independent Testability and Experimental Type: Response to Erlichson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Ronald Laymon*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy the Ohio State University

Abstract

One of the things I attempted to do in my paper on independent testability (1980) was to illustrate convincingly the very real difficulties of distinguishing between the accidental and essential features of a scientific experiment. The importance of this distinction is that independent testability presumably requires differences that are essential and telling and not merely accidental reflections of existing experimental technique or of the procedural preferences of the experimenter. In the case of the Michelson-Morley (MM) and Kennedy-Thorndike (KT) experiments, I showed, following a suggestion of M. G. Evans, that Grünbaum's attempt to distinguish these two experiments does not work. I also showed that certain obvious and natural variations of Grünbaum's approach do not adequately distinguish these experiments. So, for example, it will not do simply to claim that MM is characterized by equal arms and KT by unequal arms, since equal arms are required for MM only in the absence of adequate photographic registration methods. But if these methods are not available then KT is not possible. Conversely, if these methods are available, then while both MM and KT are experimentally possible, MM need not be restricted to equal arms.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Erlichson, H. (1981), “The Michelson-Morley and Kennedy-Thorndike Experiments”, Philosophy of Science 48: 620–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laymon, R. (1980), “Independent Testability: The Michelson-Morley and Kennedy-Thorndike Experiments”, Philosophy of Science 47: 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leplin, J. (1975), “The Concept of an Ad Hoc Hypothesis”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 5: 309345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leplin, J. (1982), “The Assessment of Auxiliary Hypotheses”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science: forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. C. (1933), “The Ether-Drift Experiment and the Determination of the Absolute Motion of the Earth”, Reviews of Modern Physics 5: 204242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shankland, R. S., McCuskey, S. W., Leone, F. C. and Kuerti, G. (1955), “New Analysis of the Interferometer Observations of Dayton C. Miller’ ‘, Reviews of Modern Physics 27: 167178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wertheimer, M. (1959), Productive Thinking. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar