on A.I. is applicable to both, in Silverman’s opinion.

He says that “law may

be seen as an A.I. system, and jurisprudence as the study of the computer
science of that system”-“metaphorically” @. 109). One of the metaphors
that Silverman finds particularly pregnant is that of the law as a huge adaptive
resonance network (p. 80).
All this might appear entirely fanciful. I think it is.
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONC LAURENCE GOLDSTEIN

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Philosophy of Science in the Twentieth Century: Four Central Themes

By DONALD GILLIES
Basil Blackwell, 1993. xiv + 262 pp. k35.00 cloth, Al1.99 paper

This is a superbly clear and informative introduction to the philosophy of

sciencc. The themes Gillies selects provide the structure for the book’s four
parts: inductivism, conventionalism and the Quine-Duhem thesis, the nature
of observation, and the demarcation between science and metaphysics. Other
philosophers might select other themes, but Gitlies is surely right that his chosen
themes are of the Lgreatestimportance. Furthermore, they are foundational
themes: anyone who wishes to have a sound grasp of this century’s philosophy of
science, including its more recent developments, needs a thorough acquaintance
with them. For such a person, Gillies’ book is the place to start.
To illustrate his discussion, and in order to assess the claims ofthe views under
consideration, Gillies deftly presents cases drawn from the history of physics
(Kepler’s theory ofplanetary orbits, and quantum theory in Planck’s and Einste-
in’s hands) and biochemistry (the discoveries of penicillin and sulphonamide).
He puts to especially good effect his own historical rescarch in the second of
these fields.
Chapter 1 outlines inductivism, the thesis that scientific research should be
conducted by amassing observations and then inferring theories from them.
This is distinguished from Bayesianism, a thesis about the nature of evidential
support theories receive from observations @. 15).In Chapters 2 and 3 Gillies
discusses criticisms of these theses by Popper and Duhem. Popper’s criticisms
are that observation needs a theoretical background, that inductive principles
cannot be justified, and that science does not need such principles since it uses
the method of conjecture and refutation. According to Duhem, Newtonian
mechanics contradicts Kepler’s laws and so, pace Newton, cannot be inductively
derived from those laws. What is more, Newtonian mechanics involves concep-
tual innovation by introducing the concepts of mass and force, concepts absent
from Kepler’s laws.
Note, however, that these criticisms do not apply equally to inductivism
and Bayesianism: for example, the first of Popper’s above objections leaves
Bayesianism untouched (p. 30). Moreover, as Gillies shows, it is possible to
synthesise the leading ideas of inductivisim and Popperianism (pp. 47-48).
Chapter 4 describes how the development of non-Euclidean geometries
inspired Poincare to claim that geometrical systems, and indeed Newtonian
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mechanics, are only sets of conventions. Our choice of conventions is guided
only by observation and considerations of simplicity and non-contradiction
(pp. 88-90).
If Newtonian mechanics was true by convention, we might suppose that
its truth would be knowable a priori. However, Gillies agrees with Poincart
that it cannot be knowable a priori on the ground that “it is hard to see how
this historical fact [namely that “Aristotelian mechanics is quite different from
Newtonian mechanics . . . and yet . . . was believed to be correct for many
centuries”] is compatible with Newton’s laws of motions being a priori”
(p. 91). But then, by the same measure, the fact that Euclidean geometry was
believed for centuries should be incompatible with non-Euclidean geometries
being a priori! I suspect that the alleged incompatibility arises only on the
assumption that all a priori truths are obvious truths.
Chapter 5 considers the Duhem thesis that only whole groups of hypotheses,
and not isolated hypotheses, can be experimentally tested. Gillies believes
that this thesis is not generally true. He argues that if we observe a large
number of positions of a given planet, and these positionings do not lie on
an ellipse, then we have experimentally filsified Kepler’s law that all planets
have elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus (p. 99).
However, this testing also relies on auxiliary hypotheses-about the
reliability of our sensory mechanism, the accuracy of our telescopes and
astronomical tables, the absence of any light-distorting force fields in the
planet’s path, and so forth. So given our observations, at least one member
of this set of hypotheses is false, but which one? Why should the finger of
falsification point at Kepler’s law? These considerations motivate the Quine
thesis that no hypothesis can be tested in isolation.
In Chapter 6 Gillies defends the view that both observation sentences
which involve reference to an observer (“protocols”)and observation sentences
without such reference are required in experiment. Moreover, he believes
that the former kind of sentence provides an epistemic basis for the latter.
Chapter 7 then explains how both types of observation sentences are theory-
dependent.
The last three chapters of the book discuss, amongst other things, the
logical positivists’ case against metaphysics and Popper’s counter-arguments.
I found Gillies’ own proposal of how science is demarcated from metaphysics
of great interest (pp. 2 14-2 18). Gillies proposes a “principle of explanatory
surplus”, according to which a theory is supported not by all the facts it
entails, but only by the explanatory surplus of those facts. A theory has such
a surplus only if the number of theoretical assumptions it consists in is less
than the number of those facts themselves (pp. 2 16-2 17). An obvious difficulty
with estimating this surplus is how we are to estimate the number of facts
which a theory entails. Thus if a theory T entails the facts F and G , it seems
that T also entails the fact that F or not-F, the fact that F or not-F or G, and
so on. But then since the number of facts will be greater than the number
of T’s theoretical assumptions, T has explanatory surplus. Gillies is sanguine
that in concrete scientific situations, “standard linguistic formulations” will
divide up the number of theoretical assumptions and of facts (p. 218). But
137
then there is the difficulty that different linguistic formulations may differ on
which theories have explanatory surplus.
Moreover, it is doubtful whether Gillies’ principle is a satisfactory demarca-
tion principle. Suppose that two rival theories TI and T2 entail the same
facts. If TI has fewer theoretical assumptions than T2,this principle will take
T2 to be a metaphysical theory. But surely T2 could be a scientific theory
which is only less well-confirmed than T i (compare Ptolemaic astronomy
with Copernicus’s simpler alternative, for instance). So on this principle
whether a theory is metaphysical or scientific will depend on what other
theory it is contrasted with.
O n the final page Gillies considers the problem that almost all scientific
theories dating from 1800 or before have been found to be false in some
respect or other (p. 230). Therefore, if knowledge has to be true, there was
no scientific knowledge before 1800. Gillies finds this conclusion “unac-
ceptable”. His solution is to drop the requirement that knowledge has to be
true, and instead to take knowledge merely to be justified belief. Thus, since
there were justified scientific beliefs before 1800, Gillies is able to claim that
there was scientific knowledge prior to that time.
But it would be little comfort to any scientist who livcd before 1800 to be
told that they have scientific knowledge, if they were then to learn that almost
all their theories were false and, since the truth-requirement has been dropped,
that almost all their knowledge was false too. Gillies’ solution restates the
very sceptical conclusion it sought to overturn.
BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD CHRIS DALY

Evolution
By ALE(: PANCHEN
Bristol Classical Press [an imprint of Duckworth], 1993. viii + 184 pp.
F6.95 paper

The particular appeal of the theory of evolution for anyone teaching an

undergraduate course in the philosophy of science cannot be denied. I t lends
itself to easy exposition, it might seem, and without recourse to mathematics
or technical detail, lay teacher and lay audience grasp its essentials. I read
recently that a philosopher of science is preparing a book to be titled Darwinian
FuiTtuhs. Only chemists and physicists think themselves equipped to contravert
central theses of chemistry and physics, but biology, at this point at least, has
always suffered the importunings of philosophical enlightenment or hubris,
and of enthusiasm, in the religious and superannuated sense of the word.
Alec Panchen’s book, however, should dampen any reader’s propension for
armchair science.
This book is an account of Darwin’s arguments, of Mendel’s discoveries,
and of their union in twentieth century biology. Panchen threads the material
together historically, sketching pre-Darwinian theories of evolution, placing
the work of the great naturalists and anatomists whose achievements were a
sine qua non of Darwin’s own, and, in the latter part of the book, introducing
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