Comment on Meehl’s (1978) “Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow progress of soft psychology”

Abstract

A serious problem with Popperian falsificationism in the presence of auxiliary hypotheses and experimental conditions, in addition to a theory under test, is raised by Meehl. In brief, a negative result endangers both the theory in question, and the auxiliary hypotheses; which should we reject? I discuss how considering series of studies, rather than a single study, helps make this problem somewhat more tractable. I treat situations where negative results are in hand, as well as situations where positive results may be discounted by skeptics who question auxiliary hypotheses.