Abstract
Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation (or external validity as it is sometimes called) is a minor scandal in the philosophy of science’. This paper agrees with the statement, but for reasons different from Guala’s. The scandal is not, or not any longer, that the problem has been ignored in the philosophy of science. The scandal is that framing the problem as one of external validity encourages poor evidential reasoning. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative—an alternative which constitutes much better evidential reasoning about target systems of interest, and which makes do without (much) consideration of external validity.
Highlights
Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation is a minor scandal in the philosophy of science’ (Guala 2010: p. 1070)
The scandal is that framing the problem as one of external validity encourages poor evidential reasoning
I will defend the thesis that thinking about causal inference in terms of the ‘internal validity’ and ‘external validity’ of causal claims encourages bad evidential reasoning because it suggests that for a claim to be externally valid of a target system of interest we have to establish an analogous claim for some experimental model system first—which, as I’ll argue, is false
Summary
Francesco Guala once wrote that ‘The problem of extrapolation (or external validity as it is sometimes called) is a minor scandal in the philosophy of science’ (Guala 2010: p. 1070). The scandal is that framing the problem as one of external validity encourages poor evidential reasoning. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative—an alternative which constitutes much better evidential reasoning about target systems of interest, and which makes do without (or with a minimum of) considerations of external validity. I will defend the thesis that thinking about causal inference in terms of the ‘internal validity’ and ‘external validity’ of causal claims encourages bad evidential reasoning because it suggests that for a claim to be externally valid of a target system of interest we have to establish an analogous claim for some experimental model system first—which, as I’ll argue, is false. It has taken hold of pockets of the social sciences and economics too, and so my remarks find applicability in at least these domains within science
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