THE GRANITE PROBLEM AND THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE PREJUDICES

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INTRODUCTION In his well-known essay, The method of multiple working hypotheses, Chamberlin (1897) discussed various modes of attack upon scientific problems. Of a theory hastily advanced in explanation of any group of observations he said, “From an unduly favored child it readily grows to be a master and leads its author whithersoever it will.” The theory thus becomes a “ruling theory.” It might be said that it becomes a prejudice. As we may readily suppose, he regarded the ruling theory as having little to commend it, though he did point out that in the method of the ruling theory the investigator’s “very errors may indeed stimulate investigation on the part of others.” Chamberlin then passed on to consider the method of the working hypothesis, which he naturally regarded as having notable advantages, but added “. . . the distinction is not such as to prevent a working hypothesis from gliding with the utmost ease into a ruling theory. . . ”, and further, “To avoid this grave danger the method of multiple working hypotheses is urged” where “the mutual conflicts of hypotheses whet the discriminative edge of each.” Chamberlin thus had in mind a happy situation where an individual investigator diligently sought all reasonable processes that might lead to an observed relation, carefully considered the full consequences of each process envisioned, impartially compared these deduced consequences with the re-examined facts and thus reached a conclusion as to the probable process or group of processes that were operative. ‘Tis a consummation . . .

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