The causal strength of scientific advances

Osvaldo Pessoa

pp. 223-231

in: Décio Krause, Antonio A. Passos Videira (eds), Brazilian studies in philosophy and history of science, Berlin, Springer, 2011

Abstract

This paper starts by presenting an overview of an approach to the theory of science based on units of scientific knowledge, named "advances", connected by probabilistic causal relations. The notion of the "causal strength" of an advance is then introduced, and examples from nineteenth-century spectroscopy are explored with diagrams. The aim of this project is the implementation of the causal network in computer language.