Science for a Fragile World

Imagine two worlds. In one, laws, causal relations, and mechanisms are stable.In the other, they are fragile and unreliable. Our actual world is a mixture of the two, but for many of the things we care about most, the relations that matter are fragile.Fragility means we cannot rely on a theory or model that worked in one case still working in another, so it requires us to re-establish what works each time.Science for a Fragile World offers a novel re-examination of theory and empirical investigation, opening up a new view, and path, for scientific expertise.Chapters 1 and 2 offer an introduction and definition of the concept of fragility, proposing that a relation is fragile if and only if it holds unpredictably enough.Following from this, Chapters 3 and 4 explore the importance of narrow-scope empirical investigations and the methodological need for a 'Case Worker'-as opposed to a Stability-Theorist-approach.Chapters 5-7 further reflect on the unique challenge posed by the ubiquity of