Testing Scientific Theories was first published in 1984.
Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-
unavailable books once again accessible, and are published
unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press
editions. Since much of a scientist's work consists of
constructing arguments to show how experiments and observation
bear on a particular theory, the methodologies of theory testing
and their philosophical underpinnings are of vital concern to
philosophers of science. Confirmation of scientific theories is
the topic of Clark Glymour's important book Theory and
Evidence,published in 1980. His negative thesis is that the two
most widely discussed accounts of the methodology of theory
testing - hypothetico-deductivism and Bayesianism - are flawed.
The issues Glymour raises and his alternative "bootstrapping"
method provided the focus for a conference sponsored by the
Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and for this book. As
editor John Earman says in his preface, the pap