Paul Thagard
The Canadian philosopher who builds computer models of how scientists weigh explanations and change their minds.
Books
Conceptual Revolutions1992How scientists drop one theory for another, modeled as a contest between explanations.
How Scientists Explain Disease1999Cases from medicine, including the long road to accepting that bacteria cause ulcers.
Mentioned in
In praise of asking, part two
Why should a simple question cost so much? A nine-year-old tested a healing method with a towel and a piece of cardboard, a doctor drank a glass of bacteria, and Socrates drank the hemlock; each price depended on the certainty the question shook.