Selectivity and Discord addresses the fundamental question of whether there are grounds for belief in experimental results. Specifically, Allan Franklin is concerned with two problems in the use of experimental results in science: selectivity of data or analysis procedures and the resolution of discordant results. By means of detailed case studies of episodes from the history of modern physics, Franklin shows how these problems can be-and are-solved in the normal practice of science and, therefore, that experimental results may be legitimately used as a basis for scientific...

This book addresses the pursuit and further investigation of experimental results by analyzing classic examples from physics. The authors concentrate on the investigation of experimental results by examining case studies from the history of 20th and 21st century physics. Discussions on the discovery of parity nonconservation, the rise and fall of the Fifth Force, the search for neutrinoless double decay, supersymmetry and the expansion of the Standard Model, and measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muons are provided. Experimental results may achieve acceptance to the point...