Identify which explanatory virtues, if any, the following explanations lack and explain why it lacks that particular virtue. If there is a better explanation, suggest what it might be.

Question

1. Bob explains the fact that he can’t remember what happened yesterday by saying that he must have been kidnapped by aliens, who performed surgery on him and then erased his memory of everything that happened the day before returning him to his house.
2. Mrs. Jones hears strange noises at night such as the creaking of the floor downstairs and rattling of windows. She explains these phenomena by hypothesizing that there is a 37-pound badger that inhabits the house and that emerges at night in search of Wheat Thins and Oreos.
3. Edward saw his friend Tom at the store in their hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska just an hour ago. Then, while watching the World Cup on television, he saw someone that looked just like Tom in the crowd at the game in Brazil. He hypothesizes that his friend Tom must have an identical twin that Tom has never told him about.
4. Edward’s friend Tom died two years ago. But just yesterday Tom saw someone who looked and spoke exactly like Tom. Edward hypothesizes that Tom must have come back to life.
5. Edward’s friend Tom died twenty years ago when Tom was just 18. But just yesterday Edward saw someone who looked and spoke exactly like Tom. Edward hypothesizes that Tom must have had a son that he did not know about and that this person must have been Tom’s son.
6. Elise has the uncanny feeling that although her family members look exactly the same, something just isn’t right about them. She hypothesizes that her family members have been replaced with imposters who look and act exactly like her real family members and that no one can prove that this happened.
7. John thinks that since something cannot come from nothing and since we know there was a Big Bang, an all-powerful but invisible and undetectable being must have been the cause of the Big Bang.
8. Erin feels that she is being followed. Every time she looks over her shoulder, she sees someone duck behind an object to avoid being seen. She hypothesizes that it must be her 5th grade teacher, Mr. Sanchez.
9. While walking through the forest at night, Claudia hears some rustling in the bushes. It is clear to her that it isn’t just the wind, because she can hear sticks cracking on the ground. She hypothesizes that it must be an escaped zoo animal.
10.While driving on the freeway, Bill sees the flashing lights of a cop car in his rear view mirror. He hypothesizes that the cops must have finally found out about the library book that he never returned when he was in fifth grade and are coming to get him.
11.While driving on the freeway, Bill sees the flashing lights of a cop car in his rear view mirror. He hypothesizes that the cops are going to pull someone over for speeding.
12.While driving on the freeway, Bill sees the flashing lights of a cop car in his rear view mirror. He hypothesizes that the cops are going to pull someone over for going 13.74 mph over the speed limit.
13.Stacy cannot figure out why the rat poison she is using is not killing the rats in her apartment. She hypothesizes that the rats must be a new breed of rats that are resistant to any kind of poison and that evolved in the environment of her apartment.
14.Stacy cannot figure out why the rat poison she is using is not killing the rats in her apartment. She hypothesizes that the rats must be a new breed of rats that are immortal and that evolved in the environment of her apartment.
15.Bob is fed up with his life. He intends to kill himself so he gets his gun, puts bullets into it and pull the trigger. Miraculously, he is not killed. Bob hypothesizes that he must be immortal.

Answer 1

For many of these, there is more than one correct answer. The important thing to do is to give the correctly explanation for why the explanation lacks the virtue you have chosen.

1. This could be any number of them, including: depth (why would the aliens have kidnapped him and then returned him to his home?), power (this explanation cannot be used in a range of different circumstances—a better explanation is simply that he has some kind of amnesia), or simplicity (if we don’t have any other reason to admit there are aliens, then we should simply chalk it up to some kind of amnesia).
2. Modesty. There is no reason she should posit all of those specific details about the badger, even if it was a badger. However, even just saying it’s a badger or a large rodent is an explanation that seems to lack simplicity. If houses naturally creak and windows rattle from the wind, then positing a large rodent seems unnecessary. A better explanation would simply be that the house creaks naturally as it slightly shifts and the wind is rattling the windows.
3. Simplicity and modesty. It is simpler to simply assume that there is someone who looks like Bob, whether or not he is Bob’s identical twin. It is also more modest since positing someone who looks like Bob could include someone that is Bob’s identical twin, but also leaves open the possibility that it’s just an unrelated person who happens to look like Bob. The explanation might also lack power insofar as it raises more questions than it answers. For example, why did Bob never tell you about his identical twin?
4. Conservativeness: people don’t die and come back to life, as far as we know. Thus, we could also say it lacks power since this kind of explanation doesn’t apply in any other cases we know. A better explanation is that there is someone who looks just like Tom.
5. Modesty. Like #3, a more modest explanation is that this is someone who looks like Tom, whether or not it is Tom’s son. The explanation might also lack depth since we would want to know why you had never seen or heard of Tom’s son for 20 years.
6. The last line is the giveaway: this explanation lacks falsifiability. The reason is that Elise says that there is no way to prove that this happened (she just knows it). The explanation also lacks depth since we would want to know why and how this replacement was done!
7. If this explanation lacks an explanatory virtue, it is probably falsifiability: there is no way (within current science) to show that there wasn’t such a being. Furthermore, it might also lack depth since it raises the question: where did this all-powerful being come from?
8. Modesty. Why think that it is her 5th grade teacher rather than just some person following her? The explanation is far more specific than it needs to be in order to explain the observations she has made. Thus, it lacks modesty.
9. Again, this explanation lacks modesty. Why not just say that it is “an animal” rather than “an escaped zoo animal.” Unless she has some evidence relevant to the escaped zoo animal hypothesis, she should just leave it at the more general “animal” hypothesis. Furthermore, the explanation may be said to lack power, as well. Since most such noises are made by creatures in the wild, not escaped zoo animals, the “creatures in the wild” explanation is more powerful, since it is used to explain a much wider range of similar observations (i.e., hearing rustling in the bushes and sticks cracking on the ground while in the woods).
10. Simplicity. The simpler explanation is that Bill was speeding, not that they had tracked his overdue library book. It also lacks power since most of the time when people are pulled over on the highway it is for speeding, not unreturned library books.
11. This is a good explanation and seems to lack no explanatory virtue.
12. This explanation clearly lacks modesty. Why say that someone was going precisely 13.74 mph over the speed limit rather than saying that they were going over the speed limit (without specifying how far)? That specificity is not justified by the observed facts.
13. Conservativeness. We have no good reason for positing some whole new breed of rats—especially if the claim is that they evolved in her apartment only. This would violate what we know about how evolution works (i.e., we probably need a much larger population for this to happen than the population of rats that are contained in only her apartment). Furthermore, the explanation lacks power since a better explanation that applied to a wider range of circumstances is simply that the rats were not taking the bait.
14. Even more clearly than #13, this one lacks conservativeness. There are no known cases of anything being immortal and this idea violates our understanding of the basic laws of nature. Nothing is immortal.
15. Again, this explanation lacks conservativeness (i.e., it violates our understanding of nature which says that nothing is immortal). A better explanation is that the bullets Bob put in his gun were blanks (cf. the movie, Crash).