 Worries about underdetermination and inference to the best explanation are generally conceptual in nature, but the so-called pessimistic induction (also called the “pessimistic meta-induction”, because it concerns the “ground level” inductive inferences that generate scientific theories and law statements) is intended as an argument from empirical premises. If one considers the history of scientific theories in any given discipline, what one typically finds is a regular turnover of older theories in favor of newer ones, as scientific knowledge develops. From the point of view of the present, most past theories must be considered false; indeed, this will be true from the point of view of most times. Therefore, by enumerative induction (that is, generalizing from these cases), surely theories at any given time will ultimately be replaced and regarded as false from some future perspective. Thus, current theories are also false. The general idea of the pessimistic induction has a rich pedigree. Though neither endorse the argument, Poincaré ([1905] 1952: 160), for instance, describes the seeming “bankruptcy of science” given the apparently “ephemeral nature” of scientific theories, which one finds “abandoned one after another”, and Putnam (1978: 22–25) describes the challenge in terms of the failure of reference of terms for unobservables, with the consequence that theories incorporating them cannot be said to be true. (For a summary of different formulations, see Wray 2015.)