The Change-Driver Account of Scientific Discovery: Philosophical and Historical Dimensions of the Discovery of the Expanding Universe

TL;DR

This paper introduces the change-driver model of scientific discovery, emphasizing problems generated by data as catalysts for scientific advances, and demonstrates its advantages over previous models through historical and contemporary examples.

Contribution

It proposes a novel change-driver model that better explains scientific discoveries by linking data-driven problems to scientific progress, improving upon existing models.

Findings

The change-driver model effectively explains the discovery of the expanding universe.

It demonstrates superiority over previous models in linking discoveries to scientific dynamics.

Application to recent controversies shows model's practical relevance.

Abstract

This paper critically examines the models of scientific discovery propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As an alternative, we proffer the $\unicode{x201c}$change$\unicode{x2013}$driver model$\unicode{x201c}$. It conceives of discoveries as problems or solutions to problems that have epistemically advanced science. Here we take a problem to be generated by a datum that we want to account for and make sense of$\unicode{x2013}$by putting it in contact with our wider web of scientific knowledge and understanding. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe.