Full Idea
Is there anything in the procedures of scientists that could reveal to them that water is necessarily H2O or that gold necessarily has atomic number 79.
Gist of Idea
Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers?
Source
Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.4)
Book Reference
Sidelle,Alan: 'Necessity, Essence and Individuation' [Cornell 1989], p.95
A Reaction
This is Leibniz's is view, that empirical evidence can never reveal necessities. Given that we know some necessities, you have an argument for rationalism.