Book contents
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Physical cosmology: A brief introduction
- Part II Discovery of the CMB and current cosmological orthodoxy
- Part III What constitutes an unorthodoxy? An epistemological framework of cosmology
- Part IV Moderate unorthodoxies: The CMB with the Big Bang
- Part V Radical unorthodoxies: The CMB without the Big Bang
- Part VI Formation of the orthodoxy and the alternatives: Epistemological lessons
- 24 History and epistemology
- 25 What about the alternatives?
- 26 Pragmatic aspects of model building and social epistemology of cosmology
- 27 Large-scale numerical simulations in cosmology
- Part VII Other philosophically relevant aspects of the CMB
- Book part
- Notes
- References
- Index
26 - Pragmatic aspects of model building and social epistemology of cosmology
from Part VI - Formation of the orthodoxy and the alternatives: Epistemological lessons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2024
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Physical cosmology: A brief introduction
- Part II Discovery of the CMB and current cosmological orthodoxy
- Part III What constitutes an unorthodoxy? An epistemological framework of cosmology
- Part IV Moderate unorthodoxies: The CMB with the Big Bang
- Part V Radical unorthodoxies: The CMB without the Big Bang
- Part VI Formation of the orthodoxy and the alternatives: Epistemological lessons
- 24 History and epistemology
- 25 What about the alternatives?
- 26 Pragmatic aspects of model building and social epistemology of cosmology
- 27 Large-scale numerical simulations in cosmology
- Part VII Other philosophically relevant aspects of the CMB
- Book part
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Explanations of the CMB exhibited varied and often opposed epistemological motivations, and the models were correspondingly diverse. As the chapter clarifies, the explanations varied from subsidiaries to fully worked-out cosmological models, probing toy-models, and even the deliberate omission of modeling, relying on regular astrophysical insights alone. An admirable epistemic and observational diversity was achieved in the face of an emerging trend of ever-more centralized observational and theoretical programs that came to dominate much of physical science, including cosmology.
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- The Cosmic Microwave BackgroundHistorical and Philosophical Lessons, pp. 144 - 147Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024