Producing a Robust Body of Data with a Single Technique

Thanks to all those who came to my talk tonight or emailed me about it.  I got useful suggestions for smoothing out some rough patches in my argument.

Here’s my abstract again:

Scientists use techniques that produce “raw data” that requires substantial interpretation.  In many cases, it is impossible to discover or test by direct observation methods of interpreting that raw data.  In those cases, it is natural to assume what I call the Simple Process-Theory View: the justification for a particular method of interpretation must come from a theory of the process that produces the raw data. Contrary to this view, scientists have many strategies for validating a method of raw-data interpretation.  Thus, it is possible to produce a robust body of data with a single technique.  I illustrate and support these claims with a case study of the introduction of the cathode-ray oscillograph into electrophysiology.

I will post the paper to the Philosophy of Science Preprint Archive once I got the rights to all my figures.  In the meantime, I’d be happy to share by email with anyone who’s interested.

I think it’s too late to make substantive revisions the paper, but I plan to make the following revisions to the talk:

• Put characterization of robustness in introduction rather than conclusion.
• List theoretical presuppositions of each argument to avoid hand-waving at the end when I claim that some of the arguments are more theory-dependent than others and that the arguments are collectively independent of one another.
• Rethink statement that direct causal inference is “less powerful” than process tracing
• Add the end of sections on arguments by direct causal inference and arguments by process-tracing, recap specific arguments (e.g. “AC currents”) rather than the strategies they instantiate (e.g. “Checks and calibration”)
• Address at the end two possible objections:

1. Simple Process-Theory View is obviously false, so my thesis is trivial.  Response: Culp seems to endorse Simple Process-Theory View within philosophy of experiment.  Others follow her in emphasizing importance of multiple techniques, neglecting multiple arguments for one technique.  Also, Simple Process-Tracing View often crops up as a throw-away line outside of philosophy of experiment proper.
2. Simple Process-Theory View has been denied before, so thesis is unoriginal.  Response: Simple Process-Theory View is highly dubious in light of the work of, e.g., Ian Hacking and Allan Franklin.  To my knowledge, however, it has not been specifically targeted for criticism.  I hope that targeted criticism will reduce the frequency with which it is taken on board as an unexamined assumption.

• Add a slide on what I see myself as contributing to the literature in philosophy of experiment.  Primary contribution: developing an insight latent in Hacking’s and Franklin’s work that has important methodological implications.  Secondary contributions: (1)  New case study.  (2)  Building on Allan Franklin’s “epistemology of experiment” by introducing distinction b/t direct causal inference and process tracing and by emphasizing the importance of robustness.
• Rework slide with equation for forced vibration with damping.  It’s an important slide, but I haven’t worked out a sufficiently clear way to present it.

Further suggestions are welcome!  In particular, does anyone have more elegant name for the view I’m opposing than “Simple Process-Theory View?”

Thanks,
Greg