Abstract

In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie offers an account of how historically oriented researchers in paleontology, archaeology, and the geosciences make the most out of their epistemically unlucky circumstances. He argues that there are three things, in particular, that can help scientists gain traction in unlucky circumstances: methodological omnivory, epistemic scaffolding, and “empirically grounded speculation”. Together, these three aspects of the practice of historical science help explain its successes. I largely agree with Currie’s account of methodological omnivory and epistemic scaffolding, but I want to raise some critical questions about his discussion of speculation.