Internet Epistemology: Contributions of New Information Technologies to Scientific Research

Abstract

Internet technologies, including electronic mail, preprint archives, and the World Wide Web, are now ubiquitous parts of scientific practice. After reviewing the full range of these technologies and sketching the history of their development, this paper provides an epistemological appraisal of their contributions to scientific research. It uses Alvin Goldman's epistemic criteria of reliability, power, fecundity, speed and efficiency to evaluate the largely positive impact of Internet technologies on the development of scientific knowledge.