Sherrilyn Roush - Should Newton’s Principia be retracted? “Good Science” and the Epistemology of Retraction

Sherrilyn Roush (University of California, Los Angeles)

The Center for Philosophy of Science invites you to our Featured Former Fellow online lecture presented by:   

Featured Former Fellow:   Sherrilyn Roush

Friday, April 3rd @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EST

Title:   Should Newton’s Principia be retracted? “Good Science” and the Epistemology of Retraction

Abstract: 

There is an epidemic of retractions of scientific journal articles; often, though not always, it is for fraud or misconduct. This obviously erodes public trust in our institutions of knowledge production. Inductive reasoning is non-monotonic, and, accordingly, good science is often legitimately overturned. These phenomena have a similar feel, so sharpening the distinction between them is imperative for the survival of trust in science. We can start with the observations that good science isn’t retracted, even when its conclusions are overturned – e.g., Newton’s Principia – and that falsehood of conclusions is neither necessary nor sufficient to justify retraction of a publication. I sketch an epistemic distinction between “good science” that is overturned and publications that should be retracted. Secondly, I provide some guidelines about when counting retractions in the track records of authors, reviewers, journals, publishers, and universities gives us evidence about how much to trust those vehicles in their future publications.

This talk will be available online only:

Zoom:   https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94358264552

 YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.