Fruitfulness

"""Chris Haufe has written a very important book about potential fertility, one of the most significant virtues that a scientific theory can possess. A new theory can merit serious attention, despite having severe problems and few accomplishments, because it shows great promise. But how can its promise reasonably be judged? Drawing on a wealth of historical case-studies, Haufe explains how a new theory can provide open-ended tools and apt metaphors for generating solvable problems. Written in a delightfully wry, irreverent style, Haufe's book will prove enormously fruitful."" * Marc Lange, Theda Perdue Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, UNC-Chapel Hill * ""Haufe makes a powerful and provocative case that we ought to think of scientific progress at least as much in terms of a dynamic quality of our attempts to model the world-fruitfulness-as in terms of static criteria such as truth or empirical success."" * Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine and Professor of Philosophy, NYU * ""Most scientists have far more ideas for research projects than time or resources. How do we decide which research avenues to pursue? And why do some solutions to questions arrive full of resolution to other questions? In responding to three challenges posed by Thomas Kuhn to the rationality of science, Chris Haufe develops the idea of fruitfulness as a motivating concern, for scientists pursuing fecund and solvable problems and for the special epistemic status of science as an enterprise. This novel and insightful contribution warrants study by philosophers and scientists alike."" * Douglas H. Erwin, Professor, Santa Fe Institute *"