 Another component of the realist/anti-realist debate in which appeals to novel success figure importantly is the debate over the ‘pessimistic induction’ (or ‘pessimistic meta-induction’). According to this argument, the history of science is almost entirely a history of theories that were judged empirically successful in their day only to be shown subsequently to be entirely false. There is no reason to think that currently accepted theories are any different in this regard (Laudan 1981b). 