Philosophy of science isn't pointless chin-stroking – it makes us better scientists

Understanding causal inference, one aspect of philosophy of science, is key to making our research reliable

" the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science."

This is the view of Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krauss, author of the 2012 book A Universe from Nothing. He is certainly not the only physicist to be critical of the philosophy of science. Richard Feynman, who shared the 1965 Nobel prize in physics for his work on quantum field theory, claimed that the "philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds". It's quite a stance. In a recent commentary in Nature, we describe how a better understanding of one aspect of the philosophy of science, namely causal inference, can help us be better scientists.