ABSTRACT
The preference reversals research programme is one of the most well-studied episodes of experimental practice. It has been used to show the inconclusiveness of economics experiments or economists’ dogmatism when confronted with evidence that contradicts their most ingrained beliefs. In this chapter, I use the preference reversals (PR) programme to illustrate the epistemic role of the collective dimension of experimental practice in economics, including the role of the dogmatic attitude of experimental economists. I show how experimental knowledge is produced in an incremental way by series of experiments that critically examine previous results; and how the disparity of the views in confrontation is crucial to the design of experiments that together resolve the points of contention and promote the identification and revision of scientists’ beliefs. Because the PR programme has already been extensively studied, I shall keep the description of experiments to a minimum and focus instead on the various stages of the debate and on what they have accomplished.1
