Pessimistic induction

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In the philosophy of science, the pessimistic induction, also known as the pessimistic meta-induction, is an argument which seeks to rebut scientific realism, particularly the scientific realist's notion of epistemic optimism. The pessimistic meta-induction is the argument that if past successful and accepted scientific theories were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the scientific realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately true.