On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Michael Perelman wrote: > The Duhem-Quine problem says that a theory cannot be > rejected because a predicted outcome did not occur, since > many auxiliary assumptions are required for the theory to be > true. Recall during the Reagan era that when promised > results did not occur, the responsible authorities could > claim that to be really effective we also needed the gold > standard. The Reagan-era policy case seems like a good example of the way "Duhem-Quine" fades into plain old special pleading and refusal to accept refutation. In principle you can always find an auxiliary assumption to take the hit, but then how convincing is the original proposition? Allin Cottrell.
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