Skip Navigation


The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Advance Access originally published online on October 31, 2005
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2005 56(4):791-807; doi:10.1093/bjps/axi146
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
56/4/791    most recent
axi146v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Danks, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2005). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Scientific Coherence and the Fusion of Experimental Results

David Danks

Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University and Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA ddanks{at}cmu.edu

A pervasive feature of the sciences, particularly the applied sciences, is an experimental focus on a few (often only one) possible causal connections. At the same time, scientists often advance and apply relatively broad models that incorporate many different causal mechanisms. We are naturally led to ask whether there are normative rules for integrating multiple local experimental conclusions into models covering many additional variables. In this paper, we provide a positive answer to this question by developing several inference rules that use local causal models to place constraints on the integrated model, given quite general assumptions. We also demonstrate the practical value of these rules by applying them to a case study from ecology.

  1. Experimental scope in applied sciences
  2. Fusing the results of experiments
  3. A concrete example of the inference rules
  4. Application to a case study


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Br J Philos SciHome page
C. Glymour
What Is Right with 'Bayes Net Methods' and What Is Wrong with 'Hunting Causes and Using Them'?
Brit J Philos Sci, November 12, 2009; (2009) axp039v1.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Philosophy of the Social SciencesHome page
D. Steel
With or Without Mechanisms: A Reply to Weber
Philosophy of the Social Sciences, September 1, 2007; 37(3): 360 - 365.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.