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Book Review: The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics by David Harriman, with an introduction by Leonard Peikoff. New American Library, July 2010. Paperback, 279 pages + vi, illustrations. $16.00.
Despite some flaws in the presentation, David Harriman’s proposal for a new method of scientific methodology is interesting, valuable, and important. Harriman’s thesis is that induction is actually the integration of a new experience with the totality of all previous experience for the purpose of creating a new generalization. One example is enough for a generalization, if it is validly composed. According to Harriman, to be valid, an induction must be derived from a first-level generalization. To demonstrate the truth of his claim, Harriman provides examples from the works of Galileo, Newton, and Dalton, among others.
Harriman has his own new theory of science, dismissing the accepted scientific method. “Today, it is almost universally held that the process of theory creation is nonobjective. According to the most common view, which is institutionalized in the so-called “hypothetico-deductive method,” it is only the testing of theories (i.e., comparing predictions to observations) that gives science any claim to objectivity. Unfortunately, say the advocates of this method, such testing cannot result in proof – and it cannot result even in disproof, since any theory can be saved from an inconvenient observation merely by adding more arbitrary hypotheses. So the hypothetico-deductive method leads invariably to skepticism” (pp. 145-146). Thus, to Harriman, Newton’s experiments did not validate Descartes’ (more correct) theory of light.
David Harriman earned a master's degree in physics from University of Maryland, and a master's in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University. Leonard Peikoff completed a doctorate in philosophy at NYU.
Despite some flaws in the presentation, David Harriman’s proposal for a new method of scientific methodology is interesting, valuable, and important. Harriman’s thesis is that induction is actually the integration of a new experience with the totality of all previous experience for the purpose of creating a new generalization. One example is enough for a generalization, if it is validly composed. According to Harriman, to be valid, an induction must be derived from a first-level generalization. To demonstrate the truth of his claim, Harriman provides examples from the works of Galileo, Newton, and Dalton, among others.
Harriman has his own new theory of science, dismissing the accepted scientific method. “Today, it is almost universally held that the process of theory creation is nonobjective. According to the most common view, which is institutionalized in the so-called “hypothetico-deductive method,” it is only the testing of theories (i.e., comparing predictions to observations) that gives science any claim to objectivity. Unfortunately, say the advocates of this method, such testing cannot result in proof – and it cannot result even in disproof, since any theory can be saved from an inconvenient observation merely by adding more arbitrary hypotheses. So the hypothetico-deductive method leads invariably to skepticism” (pp. 145-146). Thus, to Harriman, Newton’s experiments did not validate Descartes’ (more correct) theory of light.
David Harriman earned a master's degree in physics from University of Maryland, and a master's in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University. Leonard Peikoff completed a doctorate in philosophy at NYU.