Realism on the rocks: Novel success and James Hutton's theory of the earth

In this paper, I introduce a new historical case study into the scientific realism debate. During the late-eighteenth century, the Scottish natural philosopher James Hutton made two important successful novel predictions. The first concerned granitic veins intruding from granite masses into strata. The second concerned what geologists now term “angular unconformities”: older sections of strata overlain by younger sections, the two resting at different angles, the former typically more inclined than the latter. These predictions, I argue, are potentially problematic for selective scientific realism in that constituents of Hutton's theory that would not be considered even approximately true today played various roles in generating them. The aim here is not to provide a full philosophical analysis but to introduce the case into the debate by detailing the history and showing why, at least prima facie, it presents a problem for selective realism. First, I explicate Hutton's theory. I then give an account of Hutton's predictions and their confirmations. Next, I explain why these predictions are relevant to the realism debate. Finally, I consider which constituents of Hutton's theory are, according to current beliefs, true (or approximately true), which are not (even approximately) true, and which were responsible for these successes.     

L-Fuzzy H-分离性

引入了θ－拓扑空间的概念,得到一个有意义的结果是关于诱导ＬＦ拓扑空间的θ－拓扑与原空间的θ－拓扑的诱导ＬＦ拓扑这间的关系;ｗｌ（Ｔθ）＝ｗＬ（Ｔ））θ作者了Ｈ－Ｔ２、Ｈｕｔｔｏｎ正则、几乎Ｈｕｔｔｏｎ正则等空间的一些性质,回 文献「１」中提出的一个公开问题。