Nature - autonomous learning

196 the dis/unity of geographyinduction and deduction a physical geographer has formulated a plausibleidea that might account for what s/he’s observed in the landscape, it is,these days, accepted that multiple working hypotheses are preferable to a singleruling hypothesis (Chamberlin 1965).The reason for this is that testingmultiple hypotheses maximises the chance of identifying the correct ideasabout what is being studied, while also speeding up scientific discovery (seeFigures 4.3 and 4.4).The paper by Battarbee et al. (1985) is a classic exampleof multiple working hypotheses being utilised in a research project.Box 4.2 THE DEDUCTIVE-NOMOLOGICAL MODEOF SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONThe deductive-nomological (or ‘covering-law’) approach toexplaining the world was first codified by the so-called Vienna Schoolof the 1920s and 1930s. This group of philosophers and mathematiciansargued that science can be demarcated from non-sciencebecause it only deals with two kinds of truths: namely, empiricaltruths (i.e. those established by unbiased observation) and logicaltruths (like 1+1=2). Karl Popper subsequently argued that the formerare best arrived at through a process of falsification not verification.Together, these two kinds of truth are expressed as scientific models,theories or laws. For the Vienna School these ought to be absolutelyor relatively universal, covering phenomena as yet unobservedin so far as those phenomena are the same as those upon whoseobservation existing models, theories and laws are based. Thismeans that a practising scientist (like a landslide researcher) can usethese models, theories and laws in new empirical settings rather thanhaving to create new ones each time they undertake research. Putdifferently, this presumption of the relative or absolute universalityof scientific knowledge ‘enable[s scientists] . . . to connect together[their] . . . knowledge of separately known events, and to makereliable predictions of events as yet unknown’ (Braithwaite 1953: 1).As two physical geographers express it in relation to their researcharea: ‘It is of limited interest to know why the sediment load of theRiver Rhine varies as it does; but it is a different matter if knowledge