Is science inconsistent?

There has always been interest in inconsistency in science, not least within science itself as scientists strive to devise a consistent picture of the universe. Some important early landmarks in this history are Copernicus’s criticism of the Ptolemaic picture of the heavens, Galileo’s claim that Aristotle’s theory of motion was inconsistent, and Berkeley’s claim that the early calculus was inconsistent. More recent landmarks include the classical theory of the electron, Bohr’s theory of the atom, and the on-going difficulty of reconciling Einstein’s general relativity and quantum theory. But over the past few decades philosophers have taken a particular and increasing interest in inconsistency in science. In 2002 this culminated in the first collection of articles specifically dedicated to the topic: Inconsistency in Science, edited by Joke Meheus, published by Kluwer, and featuring twelve articles on a range of topics in the philosophy of science and mathematics. Since then philosophical interest in inconsistency in science has gained still further momentum. In particular, there has been a debate as to whether classical electrodynamics is an inconsistent theory (Frisch 2004, 2005, 2008; Belot 2007; Muller 2007; Vickers 2008). In addition one can point to important new developments in our understanding of how inconsistencies infiltrate scientific practice. Mark Wilson’s work Wandering Significance 2006 is an increasingly important reference point here. One can also point to developments in our understanding of inconsistent mathematics (e.g. Colyvan 2008a, 2009), paraconsistent logic (e.g. Meheus 2003; Brown and Priest