Simplicity in science

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the possibility of justifying simplicity principles in science. The labor of these projects is organized into three chapters. The first chapter introduces some of the key authors and issues in the history of simplicity in science. This chapter also gives a detailed discussion of the work of the 19th century physicists Le Verrier and Newcomb who played a crucial role in setting the stage for Einstein’s theory of relativity. These examples are used to illustrate points in the following chapters. However, they play a specific role in the first chapter to show serious problems with a view defended by an important contemporary author, Richard Swinburne, that one version of the principle of parsimony contributes to the probability that scientific theories will be true. The second chapter elucidates the problems involved in specifying and measuring the simplicity of scientific hypotheses and theories. Several twentieth century authors like Harold Jeffreys, Nelson Goodman, and Mario Bunge made significant contributions to the clarification and organization of various kinds of simplicity criteria. When simplicity criteria are employed in a scientific methodology, we find that simplicity judgments of one kind are always traded-off with simplicity judgments of another kind. We also find that the scientific project involves a delicate balancing of several aims. This analysis renders a valuable result: that some dogmas, in particular, the dogma that principles of parsimony are the final court of appeal in scientific theory selection must be jettisoned. I also find that it is misguided to ask the question of whether or not simplicity of some clearly specified