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All Outputs (33)

Surveys of the scientific community on the existence of extraterrestrial life (2025)
Journal Article
Vickers, P., Gardiner, E., Gillen, C., Hyde, B., Jeancolas, C., Mitchell Finnigan, S., Nováková, J. N., Strandin, H., Tasdan, U., Taylor, H., & McMahon, S. (2025). Surveys of the scientific community on the existence of extraterrestrial life. Nature Astronomy, 9, 16-18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02451-0

During February–June 2024 we conducted four surveys among researchers regarding the likely existence of basic, complex, and intelligent extraterrestrial life. Our results offer a snapshot of community opinion and reveal a significant degree of consen... Read More about Surveys of the scientific community on the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Development of a novel methodology for ascertaining scientific opinion and extent of agreement (2024)
Journal Article
Vickers, P., Adamo, L., Alfano, M., Clark, C., Cresto, E., Cui, H., Dang, H., Dellsén, F., Dupin, N., Gradowski, L., Graf, S., Guevara, A., Hallap, M., Hamilton, J., Hardey, M., Helm, P., Landrum, A., Levy, N., Machery, E., Mills, S., …Mitchell Finnigan, S. (2024). Development of a novel methodology for ascertaining scientific opinion and extent of agreement. PLoS ONE, 19(12), Article e0313541. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313541

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world’s scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also o... Read More about Development of a novel methodology for ascertaining scientific opinion and extent of agreement.

The Call for a New Definition of Biosignature. (2023)
Journal Article
Gillen, C., Jeancolas, C., McMahon, S., & Vickers, P. (2023). The Call for a New Definition of Biosignature. Astrobiology, 23(11), 1228-1237. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2023.0010

The term has become increasingly prevalent in astrobiology literature as our ability to search for life advances. Although this term has been useful to the community, its definition is not settled. Existing definitions conflict sharply over the bal... Read More about The Call for a New Definition of Biosignature..

Breakthrough results in astrobiology: is ‘high risk’ research needed? (2023)
Journal Article
Jeancolas, C., Gillen, C., McMahon, S., Ward, M., & Vickers, P. J. (2024). Breakthrough results in astrobiology: is ‘high risk’ research needed?. International Journal of Astrobiology, 23, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1473550423000241

Astrobiology is a scientific endeavour involving great uncertainties. This could justify intellectual risk-taking associated with research that significantly deviates from the mainstream, to explore new avenues. However, little is known regarding the... Read More about Breakthrough results in astrobiology: is ‘high risk’ research needed?.

Confidence of Life Detection: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives (2023)
Journal Article
Vickers, P., Cowie, C., Dick, S. J., Gillen, C., Jeancolas, C., Rothschild, L. J., & McMahon, S. (online). Confidence of Life Detection: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives. Astrobiology, 23(11), https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2022.0084

Potential biosignatures offering the promise of extraterrestrial life (past or present) are to be expected in the coming years and decades, whether from within our own solar system, from an exoplanet atmosphere, or otherwise. With each such potential... Read More about Confidence of Life Detection: The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives.

Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: an Overlap Strategy (2022)
Journal Article
Fraser, J. D., & Vickers, P. (online). Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: an Overlap Strategy. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, https://doi.org/10.1086/721635

The existence of multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics appears to pose a serious challenge for knowledge claims about the quantum domain. Hoefer (2020) argues that a scientific realist epistemology must be abandoned in this context, while Cal... Read More about Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: an Overlap Strategy.

Identifying Future-Proof Science (2022)
Book
Vickers, P. (in press). Identifying Future-Proof Science. Oxford University Press

First book to directly engage with the question of how to identify future-proof science Takes a transdisciplinary approach in its combination of historical, philosophical, and sociological methods Offers a companion to Alexander Bird's Knowing Scienc... Read More about Identifying Future-Proof Science.

Expecting the unexpected in the search for extraterrestrial life (2020)
Journal Article
Vickers, P. (2020). Expecting the unexpected in the search for extraterrestrial life. International Journal of Astrobiology, 19(6), 482-491. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1473550420000269

On p. 10 of the 2018 National Academies Exoplanet Science Strategy document (NASEM 2018), ‘Expect the unexpected’ is described as a general principle of the exoplanet field. But for the next 150 pages, this principle is apparently forgotten, as strat... Read More about Expecting the unexpected in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Disarming the Ultimate Historical Challenge to Scientific Realism (2018)
Journal Article
Vickers, P. (2020). Disarming the Ultimate Historical Challenge to Scientific Realism. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 71(3), 987-1012. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axy035

Probably the most dramatic historical challenge to scientific realism concerns Arnold Sommerfeld’s 1916 derivation of the fine structure energy levels of hydrogen. Not only were his predictions good, he derived exactly the same formula that would lat... Read More about Disarming the Ultimate Historical Challenge to Scientific Realism.

Historical Challenges to Realism (2017)
Book Chapter
Vickers, P. (2017). Historical Challenges to Realism. In J. Saatsi (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism (48-59). (1). Routledge

Why Kirchhoff's Approximation Works (2016)
Book Chapter
Vickers, P. (2016). Why Kirchhoff's Approximation Works. In K. Hentschel, & N. Y. Zhu (Eds.), Gustav Robert Kirchhoff's Treatise “On the Theory of Light Rays” (1882). World Scientific Publishing

Towards a realistic success-to-truth inference for scientific realism (2016)
Journal Article
Vickers, P. (2019). Towards a realistic success-to-truth inference for scientific realism. Synthese, 196(2), 571-585. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1150-9

A success-to-truth inference has always been at the heart of scientific realist positions. But all attempts to articulate the inference have met with very significant challenges. This paper reconstructs the evolution of this inference, and brings tog... Read More about Towards a realistic success-to-truth inference for scientific realism.

Understanding the selective realist defence against the PMI (2016)
Journal Article
Vickers, P. (2017). Understanding the selective realist defence against the PMI. Synthese, 194(9), 3221-3232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1082-4

One of the popular realist responses to the pessimistic meta-induction (PMI) is the ‘selective’ move, where a realist only commits to the ‘working posits’ of a successful theory, and withholds commitment to ‘idle posits’. Antirealists often criticise... Read More about Understanding the selective realist defence against the PMI.

Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism (2016)
Journal Article
Taylor, H., & Vickers, P. (2017). Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 7(1), 17-40. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0136-2

Pluralist and eliminativist positions have proliferated within both science and philosophy of science in recent decades. This paper asks the question why this shift of thinking has occurred, and where it is leading us. We provide an explanation which... Read More about Conceptual Fragmentation and the Rise of Eliminativism.