Scientists’ Responses to Anomalous Data: Evidence from Psychology, History, and Philosophy of Science

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic account of the role of anomaly in theory change in science. We adopt a naturalist approach to the philosophy of science (e.g., Giere 1985; Maffie 1990) and support our proposal with evidence from the history of science and from the psychology of science. Previous discussions of the topic of anomaly in theory change have rarely used evidence from psychology. Probably this has been due to the relatively immature state of research in the psychology of science (cf. Gorman forthcoming; Gholson, Shadish, Neimeyer, and Houts 1989). However there is now enough research on the topic of belief change (cf. Chinn and Brewer 1993b) to provide a foundation for theory development in the area of responses to anomaly. Much of the research in this area uses data from undergraduates and children and not scientists (see Dunbar forthcoming, for an exception).

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