Laurence Moss wrote:  
  
>If the flatearth society can explain the locational distribution of   
>warehouses better than, say, Krugman, then I am interested in what they have to >say and
how they say it.
>  
  
  
The key word of course is "better". I suspect that some, perhaps Pat and   
Larry, believe that the idea of a "better explanation" is clearcut, and   
that all of us could possibly agree on what a "better explanation" might   
consist of. Others, like me and perhaps Yuval, believe no such thing,   
and regard explanations as more or less satisfying to us for our   
particular projects in particular local and contingent circumstances.   
The riposte to us is that "science" "provides" "good" criteria of   
"better". I respond that "science" is not unproblematic in this context,   
"provides" is an act of human not community agency, and that "better" is   
thus unanchored. Which is not to say that we cannot sometimes, maybe   
many times, all  (who are we "all"?) or perhaps most of us agree that "X   
is a better explanation for P than is Y." Perhaps those who "all" can so   
agree form a particular community at least in part defined by that   
shared agreement. But there is nothing especially compelling about that   
X-P explanation for those who are not members of that community.  
  
E. Roy Weintraub