The “water memory affair”. The epistemic structure of a scientific controversy

In the sociology of science, certain authors claim that the analysis of controversies may take place in an analytical framework which states that science is not an activity that is regulated by shared standards and that nature may play only a marginal role in the assessment and validation of scientific knowledge. From the case of the water memory controversy, we will show that one of the conditions determining the possibility of scientific debates relates to the existence of an epistemic ethos constituted of three norms (realism, coherentism and skepticism). These norms frame argumentative exchanges. Moreover, the aporias of the empirical sub-determination of controversies will be highlighted by discussing in particular the argument of the experimenter’s regress