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Social Studies of Science
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Star Crushing:

Theoretical Practice and the Theoreticians' Regress

Daniel Kennefick

Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise and Science (KES), School of Social and Administrative Studies, Cardiff University, 50 Park Place, Cardiff CF1 3AT, Wales, UK; fax: +44 29 20874436; KennefickD{at}cardiff.ac.uk

This paper presents a case study of a recent controversy among theoretical physicists modelled on case studies of experimental science conducted in recent times by sociologists and historians. The principal source is a series of interviews with leading participants in the controversy. I have also read published papers pertaining to the debate and the study is informed by my own experience as a researcher in the relevant field of theoretical physics during the earliest period of the controversy. I argue, on the basis of this study, that the work of theorists can be very like the work of experimentalists. Concepts such as `tacit knowledge', and problems of replicability, may be just as relevant to the study of theorists as they are to experimenters. In analogy with Collins' `Experimenters' Regress', I propose the existence of a `Theoreticians' Regress' which expresses the difficulty theorists have in judging the correctness of rival calculations when the best or only test of their validity is their own result, which is itself in dispute.

Key Words: computing • controversy • physics • replication • tacit knowledge

Social Studies of Science, Vol. 30, No. 1, 5-40 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/030631200030001001
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