Realism, pessimism, and underdetermination -- Chasing Duhem: the problem of unconceived alternatives -- Darwin and pangenesis: the search for the material basis of generation and heredity -- Galton and the stirp theory -- August Weismann's theory of the germ-plasm -- History revisited: Pyrrhic victories for scientific realism -- Selective confirmation and the historical record: "another such victory over the Romans"? -- Science without realism?
Summary
This volume argues that history reveals our routine failure to even conceive of well-confirmed alternatives to our scientific theories, and similar alternatives to our own theories likely remain unconceived. It shows why defences of scientific realism cannot evade the problem and proposes an alternative image of the scientific enterprise
