The Change-Driver Account of Scientific Discovery: Philosophical and Historical Dimensions of the Discovery of the Expanding Universe

Abstract

This paper critically examines the models of scientific discovery propounded by Kuhn, McArthur, Hudson, and Schindler. As an alternative, we proffer the $\unicode{x201c}$change$\unicode{x2013}$driver model$\unicode{x201c}$. It conceives of discoveries as problems or solutions to problems that have epistemically advanced science. Here we take a problem to be generated by a datum that we want to account for and make sense of$\unicode{x2013}$by putting it in contact with our wider web of scientific knowledge and understanding. The model overcomes the shortcomings of its precursors, whilst preserving their insights. We demonstrate its intensional and extensional superiority, especially with respect to the link between scientific discoveries and the dynamics of science. Both as an illustration, and as an application to a recent scientific and political controversy, we apply the considered models of discovery to one of the most momentous discoveries of science: the expansion of the universe.