Earth Science, Philosophy of

Synonyms

Abduction; Earth System; Historical science; Modelling; Multiple working hypotheses; Natural experiments

The philosophy of Earth science is concerned with how humans obtain and verify knowledge of the workings of the Earth system, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere (solid earth). Earth scientists’ ways of knowing and habits of mind share important commonalities with other sciences but also have distinctive attributes that emerge from the complex, heterogeneous, unique, long-lived, and non-manipulatable nature of the Earth system (Chamberlin 1890; Frodeman 1995; Ault 1998; Cleland 2001; Manduca and Kastens 2012).

Most Earth processes do not lend themselves to experimental manipulation. Laboratory experiments have provided some important constraints on Earth processes: for example, methodical study of fluid flow in flumes has illuminated hydrodynamic principles essential to understanding rivers and sediment transport. But many first-order Earth phenomena, such...