Science

Why are scientists so keen on unification in their theories? Do we have reason to think that unified theories are likely to be correct? Or are they just desirable for other reasons--convenience, aesthetics, etc.?

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SOME scientists are keen on unification--and some are not. Philosophers of science have generally focussed on unification, typically viewing unified theories as more deeply explanatory (e.g. Hempel, Kitcher) or just as simpler or more elegant (e.g. Van Fraassen, Quine), and many scientists--particularly physicists--have expressed similar views. More recently philosophers of science, especially those working in areas of philosophy of biology, psychology and the social sciences have argued that our best theories are, and should be, disunified (John Dupre's "The Disunity of Science" was one of the early works on disunity; a more recent work on disunity in biology is Sandra Mitchell's "Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism". Scientists themselves sometimes say that they are eclectic in methodology and/or theory, indicating that they work in a pluralistic and disunified framework.

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