Pueblos, Planets, and Permian Puzzles: The Perils and Promise of Analogical Evidence in the Historical Sciences

How do scientists investigate the deep past when material traces are fragmentary and direct experimentation is impossible? This thesis explores the epistemic role of analogical reasoning in historical science, arguing that analogy is not merely interpretive but can function as a method of experimental inquiry. While philosophers like Carol Cleland emphasize trace-based inference, and critics like Derek Turner raise concerns about evidential loss and underdetermination, I argue that analogical reasoning—when appropriately structured—can overcome these limitations. Drawing on case studies from archaeology, planetary geology, and paleontology, I show that analogies grounded in shared causal or mathematical structure can support robust inferences about the past. In particular, I introduce the notion of analogue experiments: controlled interventions on material or homomorphic analogues that generate new empirical data, allowing historical scientists to test hypotheses much like their experimental counterparts. The thesis develops a practice-sensitive framework for evaluating analogical reasoning, incorporating methodological strategies from the sciences and epistemological criteria from the philosophy of science. I examine how determining structures, invariance under intervention, and integrated explanation—via consilience, coherence, and explanatory surprise—can strengthen analogical arguments and render them evidentially credible. Across six chapters, I trace a progression from the challenges of trace degradation and superficial similarity to the rehabilitation of analogy as an evidence-generating tool. I argue that historical and experimental sciences face shared epistemic limits and can both justify causal claims by appealing to the stability of patterns across interventions, whether natural or constructed. The result is a reconceptualization of analogical reasoning as a generative and experimentally powerful strategy for accessing the deep past.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Calgary

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Annan, Joseph J.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ereshefsky, Marc

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Delahanty, Megan
• Fantl, Jeremy
• Ereshefsky, Marc

• Philosophy of science
• Historical science
• analogical reasoning
• underdetermination
• analogue experiments
• epistemology of modelling
• trace evidence
• invariance
• surrogate experimentation
• scientific inference
• consilience
• coherence
• analogy
• analogical inference
• deep history
• archaeology
• palaeontology
• evolutionary biology
• cosmology
• historical linguistics
• historical geography
• life sciences
• Philosophy of historical sciences
• evidential reasoning
• evidence
• Ethnographic analogy
• comparative method
• uniformitarianism
• contingency
• convergence
• homoplasy
• archaeological interpretation
• laws
• regularities
• causation
• explanation
• macroevolution
• confirmation
• types
• kinds
• Historical explanation
• models
• simulations
• Adaptationism
• Formal Analogy
• Relational Analogy
• Illustrative Analogy
• Homomorphic Analogy
• Material Analogy
• Homeomorphic Analogy
• Isomorphic Analogy
• Paramorphic Analogy
• Composite Analogy
• Paramorphic Models
• Source-side analogy
• Subject-side analogy
• Subject-side testing
• philosophy

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM49121

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/121531