 The concept of an epistemic landscape has also emerged as of central importance in this strand of research. Analogous to a fitness landscape in biology (Wright 1932), an epistemic landscape offers an abstract representation of ideal data that might in principle be obtained in testing a range of hypotheses (Grim 2006, 2009; Weisberg &amp; Muldoon 2009; Hong &amp; Page 2004, Page 2007).  Figure 9  uses the example of data that might be obtained by testing alternative medical treatments. In such a graph points in the chemotherapy-radiation plane represent particular hypotheses about the most effective combination of radiation and chemotherapy. Graph height at each location represents some measure of success: the percentage of patients with 5-years survival on that treatment, for example.