One early and influential account of scientific explanation is the deductive-nomological model. It says that a successful scientific explanation must deduce the occurrence of the phenomena in question from a scientific law. This view has been subjected to substantial criticism, resulting in several widely acknowledged counterexamples to the theory. It is especially challenging to characterize what is meant by an explanation when the thing to be explained cannot be deduced from any law because it is a matter of chance, or otherwise cannot be perfectly predicted from what is known. Wesley Salmon developed a model in which a good scientific explanation must be statistically relevant to the outcome to be explained. Others have argued that the key to a good explanation is unifying disparate phenomena or providing a causal mechanism.
One early and influential account of scientific explanation is the deductive-nomological model It says that a successful scientific explanation must deduce the occurrence of the phenomena in question from a scientific law This view has been subjected to substantial criticism resulting in several widely acknowledged counterexamples to the theory It is especially challenging to characterize what is meant by an explanation when the thing to be explained cannot be deduced from any law because it is a matter of chance or otherwise cannot be perfectly predicted from what is known Wesley Salmon developed a model in which a good scientific explanation must be statistically relevant to the outcome to be explained Others have argued that the key to a good explanation is unifying disparate phenomena or providing a causal mechanism