We think of science as producing theories, the final result of scientist’s work. But when we try to identify what kind of thing a theory is, we run into a big problem: None of the accounts available seem to accurately describe what we know about how scientists work. Perhaps we should simply abandon the idea that science produces theories altogether and shift our focus on the actual practices of scientists. If we do that, we’ll not only gain a better understanding of the history and philosophy of science, but we’ll get closer to answering the biggest question of all: “How does science actually work?”, writes Steven French.

What is a scientific theory? We can point to any number of books and papers, seminars and YouTube talks in which all kinds of theories are presented and discussed but it would be odd, to say the least, to take any one of those books or papers and identify the theory concerned with that. Let’s take the General Theory of Relativity as an example. We can hold up and read Einstein’s original journal publication but, again, it would be bizarre to take that particular paper as the theory, not least because it was written in German, which would mean that the English translations and the re-presentations of it in countless books and other journal articles were something else, something other than that theory.