CHAPTER 5: FIGHTING ABOUT FREQUENCY
4. The value of relative frequency controversies
4.4 Resolving relative frequency controversies
The three-fold value of relative frequency controversies helps to answer our question about their apparent lack of resolution. The question raised by the fizzling out of relative frequency controversies is, how can they be rational if they are simply abandoned when scientists lose interest, rather than closed by reason an argument? The answer to
this question is that the abandonment of this kind of controversy is actually a sign of scientific good sense, and its own kind of resolution.
Suppose scientists engaged in a relative frequency controversy are able to characterize the scope of the causal patterns at issue in the controversy. This may not generate a precise relative frequency distribution, but it provides some information about relative frequency, and it improves the explanations that scientists can give of events that are produced by the relevant causal patterns. Once this explanatory goal has been
achieved, why not give up on the controversy?
One answer, developed in Section 4.2, is that there may be an unappreciated underdetermination problem that will be brought to light through continued controversy. Once this epistemic value has been realized, the relative frequency issue may not be settled, but there is no longer reason to fight about it. Instead, if scientists have practical reasons to desire still more information about relative frequency, they can continue to work on the problem, but the epistemic basis for controversy no longer exists.
At this point, the relative frequency issue may be abandoned altogether, or it may continue to fuel research projects because there is practical value in generating more information about relative frequency. In either case, though, the controversy will appear to have been abandoned. It would be a mistake to confuse this abandonment with irresolution, however. The thing that was truly at issue in the controversy, be it
explanatory, epistemic, or practical, has been resolved. It turns out, though, that resolving a relative frequency controversy does not always mean producing an precise assessment of the relative frequency of some process(es). What was truly at issue in the controversy
was never exact relative frequency, but rather determining enough information about relative frequency to answer some set of explanatory, epistemic, or practical questions.
The fizzling out of a controversy only looks like irresolution if one assumes that the goal of those involved was to learn about the exact relative frequency of some
processes. But the very fact that scientists give up on these controversies without learning this suggests that they were after something else all along. This does not mean that these controversies are only pseudo-relative frequency controversies. Relative frequency in
some form or another—but not in the form of producing a precise relative frequency
distribution— is indeed the motivating issue.
5. Conclusion
Relative frequency controversies are misunderstood, but they are pervasive and important elements of scientific practice. I have demonstrated that these controversies are valuable to science, and my analysis of their value shows that, contrary to the way they are commonly depicted, these controversies do reach resolution. These points are important for those seeking to understand the dynamics of scientific disagreement and discovery. By providing a guide to the kinds of disagreements that animate and sustain fights about frequency, my analysis may also be of use to scientists engaged in these disputes.
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