Even if fitness terms resist simple operationalization, the theory's cognitive status is secured by its indispensable role in unifying and explaining biological phenomena, per Quine-Duhem holism.
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A French physicist and philosopher from the late 1800s-early 1900s who studied how science actually works, especially how experiments help us understand the world.
Quine-Duhem holism(as used in philosophy of science and epistemology)
The idea (named after philosophers Willard Van Orman Quine and Pierre Duhem) that scientific theories can't be tested one piece at a time in isolation—instead, we always test a whole connected web of beliefs together.
Unifying (in scientific theory)(as used in philosophy of science)
Bringing different separate observations or phenomena under one explanation that shows how they're all connected.
Willard Van Orman Quine(originator of the underdetermination thesis)
An influential 20th-century American philosopher who argued that scientific theories are never uniquely determined by evidence—multiple different theories could explain the same observations.