  How then are we to decide whether to believe in the full theoretical truth of scientific theories, including what they say about unobservable entities such as electrons and black holes, or whether to believe instead merely that our best scientific theories are empirically adequate? Van Fraassen argues that since the latter belief is logically weaker and yet as empirically contentful as the former belief it is natural for an empiricist to go only as far as belief in empirical adequacy. On the other hand, many philosophers are moved by the fact that belief in only the empirical adequacy of our best scientific theories leaves us unable to explain the phenomena that they describe. Inference to the best explanation is widely believed to be an important form of reasoning in science, and the production of explanations of the world is often supposed to be one of the main successes of science. When the target of explanation becomes science itself and its history of empirical success as a whole, we arrive at the no-miracles argument famously presented by Hilary Putnam as follows: “The positive argument for realism is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't make the success of science a miracle” (1975, 73).