“The Logical Leap” — a Review:
That scientists should employ the inductive method is not the main theme of The Logical Leap; rather, the book makes the stronger claim and demonstrates that scientists must use this method in order to make progress. And many scientists are indeed making progress, even now, particularly in the applied fields. But what happens when the inductive method is misapplied, or worse, abandoned? String theory is a case in point: Some physicists accept it because it is “beautiful”, not because it was induced from observational evidence. That sort of evidence has caused many fundamental theories of contemporary physics to stagnate for more than a generation. Indeed, Harriman quotes the late Harvard University chemist E. Bright Wilson, who said, “It is very unsatisfactory that no generally acceptable theory of scientific inference has yet been put forward. Mistakes are often made which would presumably not have been made if a consistent and satisfactory basic philosophy had been followed.”