The British Society for the Philosophy of Science Darwin's Pangenesis and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives Author(s): P. Kyle Stanford Source: The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Mar., 2006), pp. 121-144 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Society for the Philosophy of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3541655 Accessed: 26-09-2016 19:18 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press, The British Society for the Philosophy of Science are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science This content downloaded from 128.195.64.2 on Mon, 26 Sep 2016 19:18:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Brit. J. Phil. Sci. 57 (2006), 121-144 Darwin's Pangenesis and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives1 P. Kyle Stanford ABSTRACT In earlier work I have argued that the most substantial threat to scientific realism arises from the problem of unconceived alternatives: the repeated failure of past scientists and scientific communities to conceive of alternatives to extant scientific theories, even when such alternatives were both (1) well confirmed by the evidence available at the time and (2) sufficiently scientifically serious as to be later embraced by actual scientific commu- nities.