How well do you know scientific realism?

Scientific Realism: Key Features, Claims, and Arguments

• Scientific realism asserts that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted
• An ideal scientific theory says definite things about genuinely existing entities
• Scientific realism usually holds that science makes progress, i.e. scientific theories usually get successively better
• Scientific realists believe that the operational success of a theory lends credence to the idea that its more unobservable aspects exist
• One argument commonly used—the "miracle argument" or "no miracles argument"—starts out by observing that scientific theories are highly successful in predicting and explaining a variety of phenomena, often with great accuracy
• Pessimistic induction, one of the main arguments against realism, argues that the history of science contains many theories once regarded as empirically successful but which are now believed to be false
• Realists reply that replacement of particular realist theories with better ones is to be expected due to the progressive nature of scientific knowledge
• Social constructivists might argue that scientific realism is unable to account for the rapid change that occurs in scientific knowledge during periods of scientific revolution
• Another argument against scientific realism, deriving from the underdetermination problem, is not so historically motivated as these others
• According to the incompatible models argument, in certain cases the existence of diverse models for a single phenomenon can be taken as evidence of anti-realism
• Scientific realism is developed largely as a reaction to logical positivism
• Scientific realism is related to much older philosophical positions including rationalism and metaphysical realism.