| Summary: | AbstractIn the 1970s, quantitative science studies were being pursued by sociologists, historians, and information scientists. Philosophers were part of this discussion, but their role would diminish as sociology of science asserted itself. An antiscience bias within the sociology of science became evident in the late 1970s, which split the science studies community, notably causing the “citationists” to go their own way. The main point of contention was whether science was a rational, evidence-based activity. To reverse the antiscience trend, it will be necessary to revive philosophical models of science, such as Bayesian confirmation theory or explanatory coherence models, where theory-experiment agreement plays a decisive role. A case study from the history of science is used to illustrate these models, and bibliometric and text-based methods are proposed as a source of data to test these models.
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