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The Discovery of Argon: A Case for Learning from Data?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Aris Spanos
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Abstract

Rayleigh and Ramsay discovered the inert gas argon in the atmospheric air in 1895 using a carefully designed sequence of experiments guided by an informal statistical analysis of the resulting data. The primary objective of this article is to revisit this remarkable historical episode in order to make a case that the error-statistical perspective can be used to bring out and systematize (not to reconstruct) these scientists't resourceful ways and strategies for detecting and eliminating error, as well as dealing with Duhemian ambiguities and underdetermination problems as they arose in the context of their local research settings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 359 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Deborah Mayo and Alan Chalmers for many valuable comments and suggestions that improved the article considerably. Thanks are also due to two anonymous referees for many constructive comments and suggestions, especially on the history of this episode. Special thanks to my daughter Marina for bringing this historical episode to my attention.

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