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Eliminative Reduction

An eliminative reduction is a reduction of a phenomena that rejects and replaces what was previously believed about that phenomena in favor of a new explanation. In an eliminative reduction, the old explanation is found to be fundamentally and thoroughly incorrect, and in need of wholesale abandonment, rather than reform.

Some examples of successful eliminative explanations in the history of science are the replacement of epicycles by the realization that the earth revolves around the sun (epicycles were not reformed, but thrown out entirely), as well as the replacement of aether, phlogiston, and transmutation by theories that superceded them.

References

Paul and Patricia Churchland, "Intertheoretic Reduction: A Neuroscientist's Field Guide" in On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997 (MIT Press, 1998)

Angus Menuge, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)

Web Resources On Eliminative Reduction

Reductionism: Concepts in Complex Systems
Reductionism: Wikipedia entry

Book Resources On Eliminative Reduction

Lessons From the Living Cell: The Limits of Reductionism by Stephen Rothman
Promises and Limits of Reductionism in the Biomedical Sciences by Marc H. V. Van Regenmortel (Editor), David L. Hull
Reductionism and the Development of Knowledge by Brown and Smith

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