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Novelty, Severity, and History in the Testing of Hypotheses: The Case of the Top Quark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Kent W. Staley
Kent W. Staley*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Abstract

It is sometimes held that facts confirm a hypothesis only if they were not used in the construction of that hypothesis. This requirement of “use novelty” introduces a historical aspect into the assessment of evidence claims. I examine a methodological principle invoked by physicists in the experimental search for the top quark that bears a striking resemblance to this view. However, this principle is better understood, both historically and philosophically, in terms of the need to conduct a severe test than in terms of use novelty. Nevertheless, a historical factor remains in the assessment of some evidence claims.

Type
Confirmation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue S3 , 1996 , pp. S248 - S255
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful for the support of a grant-in-aid from the Friends of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, which made possible the oral history interviews that provided material for this paper. Tapes of my interviews with CDF and DO members will soon be available at the AIP’s Niels Bohr Library. I am also indebted to Peter Achinstein and Bruce Barnett for helpful discussions.

‡

Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.

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