On Mon, 1 Sep 2003, Jon Johanning wrote:
> Well, I'm not a scientist, but I think I would find it rather hard to
> work on, say, quarks, day after day and not think that they were real. I
> don't think many scientists think that what they are studying are
> figments of their own imaginations.
>
I agree with you: most scientists are probably realists (has anyone done a survey?). However, I think it was Reichenbach (Justin, help me out?) who noted that the philosophical perspective of the scientist wouldn't have any real impact on day to day work. If you're an idealist, the quarks are products of human perception, but you've got to use exactly the same procedures to study them that a "realist" physicist would use. So "realism" is not a logical prerequisite for doing science or advancing scientific knowledge. (It might help when you're writing NSF grants, though.)
Miles