Alan Musgrave on the Success of Sciences as an Argument for Realism

The Popperian Critical Rationalist philosopher Alan Musgrave points to the incredible success of the natural sciences in explaining the world, predicting the behaviour of the natural world, and in designing technologies that work so well. Why is this so? In essence, it is likely to be the result of science getting to be truth, or in some cases close to the truth, about objective reality.

Musgrave lays out the “miracle” argument for scientific realism:

Musgrave, Alan. 2006–2007. “The ‘Miracle Argument’ For Scientific Realism,” The Rutherford Journal 2
http://rutherfordjournal.org/article020108.html

First, Musgrave sets out a Popperian version of inference to the best explanation, as the form of reasoning we must use to explain why the natural sciences are so successful.

The inference that it is rational to accept that there is an objective reality with objective truths follows via inference to the best explanation from the overwhelming reality that some scientific theories are extremely successful at explaining the world and doing things while some are worthless or almost completely worthless.

In essence, there if there wasn’t an objective reality with objective truths, the astonishing success of science would be (bizarrely) wholly accidental or some kind of miracle.