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Science 25 August 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5790, pp. 1047 - 1048
DOI: 10.1126/science.1131579
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Books

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE:
Science Undermined by Our Limited Imagination?

Tim Lewens

Exceeding Our Grasp
Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives
by P. Kyle Stanford
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. 248 pp. $45. ISBN 0-19-517408-9.
The author uses a consideration of 19th-century theories of inheritance and generation to support his claim that scientists often fail to conceive of alternatives to their own theories, even when these alternatives are well supported by evidence available at the time and sufficiently strong to become accepted later.
The reviewer is in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, UK. E-mail: tml1000{at}cam.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)