Golemon, Luke (2026) An Inductive No-Miracles Argument. [Preprint]
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Abstract
This paper defends the spirit of Golemon and Graber’s Deductive No-Miracles Argument (DNMA) for scientific realism against Kok Yong Lee’s recent criticisms. While Lee argues that the DNMA is invalid or leads to a collapse in probability assignments, I develop a revised Inductive No-Miracles Argument (INMA) that preserves logical strength without relying on abductive inference or explanatory premises. By introducing an “approximately equal” probabilistic operator (≈), I show how probabilistic reasoning can license a strong inductive inference without collapsing probability calculus. The resulting INMA satisfies the desiderata motivating the DNMA and clarifies how probabilistic reasoning can underwrite realist inference without appeal to explanatory virtue. Moreover, the structure argued for seems ripe for use in other contexts where avoiding abduction in lieu of less theory-laden probability is attractive, such as fine-tuning arguments and evolutionary debunking arguments.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | NMA, induction, probability, deduction, abduction | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Luke Golemon | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 17 Mar 2026 11:21 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 17 Mar 2026 11:21 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 28642 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Date: | 2026 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28642 |
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