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The Higgs discovery as a diagnostic causal inference
pp. 461-476
Abstract
I reconstruct the discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS collaboration at CERN as the application of a series of inferences from effects to causes. I show to what extent such diagnostic causal inferences can be based on well established knowledge gained in previous experiments. To this extent, causal reasoning can be used to infer the existence of entities, rather than just causal relationships between them. The resulting account relies on the principle of causality, attributes only a heuristic role to the theory’s predictions, and shows how, and to what extent, data selection can be used to exclude alternative causes, even “unconceived” ones.
Publication details
Published in:
Dawid Richard (2017) A philosophical look at the discovery of the Higgs boson. Synthese 194 (2).
Pages: 461-476
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-015-0941-8
Full citation:
Wüthrich Adrian (2017) „The Higgs discovery as a diagnostic causal inference“. Synthese 194 (2), 461–476.