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|Historical Context=Prior to Laudan’s contribution to the discourse on scientific change, the Kuhnian tradition was the prevailing approach to the topic. In this preceding tradition, methods were seen as fixed to the paradigm in which they were utilized. Theories were also seemingly fixed to the paradigm in which they were discovered.
|Major Contributions====Early Views===
Laudan’s early views are best seen through his work, [[Laudan (1977a)|''Progress and its Problems (1977)'' ]] where he discusses essentially attempted to explicate the one universal and unchangeable method of science as a process , akin to the previous attempts by Popper, Lakatos, and others. The central tenet of evolution the early-Laudan is the idea that scientists prefer theories that utilizes empirically verified evidencesolve more problems - empirical or conceptual. According Similar to LaudanLakatos, comparison he accepts that scientific theories live and die in an ocean of theories anomalies. However, he disagrees with Popper and concepts Lakatos on the question of novel predictions. While both Popper and finding Lakatos argued that a new theory is better than the old theory only if it has confirmed novel predictions (the so-called "excess corroborated empirical content"), Laudan holds that novel predictions are not given any advantage in the solutions to theories confronted with anomalies comprise process of theory choice. It is not a key part theory's ability to predict novel phenomena ''per se'' that gets the changing nature of sciencetheory accepted, but its ability to solve more empirical or conceptual problems.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1977a)]]
===Later Views===
In the early 1980s, Laudan comes to realize that there is no such thing as a universal and unchangeable method of science. One early indication of this transition is found in the discussion of [[Dudley Shapere]]'s [[Shapere (1980)|''The Character of Scientific Change (1980)'']]. In that paper, Shapere defended the idea that methods of science change as our theories about the world change. In his comment on Shapere paper, Laudan seems to appreciate that methods of science are changeable while still arguing that there must exist "persistent metacriteria for the choice of criteria".[[CiteRef::Shapere (1980)|p. 247]]. However, in his [[Laudan (1984)|''Science and Values (1984)'']], Laudan presents his '''reticulated model''' which is an attempt to explain how methods of science change in a rational fashion. At the time, this view was against the commonly held belief that some core methods of science remain unchangeable. This lead to an important debate with [[John Worrall]] (see section [[#Criticism|Criticism]]).
In Laudan's reticulated model of scientific change, theories, methods, and aims of science are all changeable. One aspect of having changeable theories, methods, and aims is that many different cognitive goals will satisfy the model. Laudan believes this is possible because there are many different reasons or purposes for why someone would want to engage in scientific inquiry and because of this there must be many different goals for studying science. Another aspect of having multiple goals is that the goals which meet the requirements of the model may be mutually incompatible. For instance, consider two scientists possessing different goals, Goal 1 and Goal 2. Goal 1 states that science is done to understand nature. Goal 2 states that science is done to prove nature doesn’t exist. Now Goal 2 is obviously rather extreme but Goal 2 suggests that nature is not real, where Goal 1 assumes natures existence. These two views are incompatible as they both strive to prove opposite claims. One cannot prove nature doesn’t exist if it is assumed nature does exist.
