6. Discussion and conclusions
As detailed earlier in this paper, the differing views about the nature of reality, knowledge, and science make conclusions about the progress of science controversial. Therefore, the conclusions drawn from this study must be expressed within a larger context. We discuss two here. First, our study views scientific progress strictly through the lens of scientific realism. While we believe that this is the most appropriate lens through which to view research in marketing, we acknowledge the sharp disagreement our views undoubtedly will evoke. Non-realist perspectives such as constructivism, for example, would contend that any scientific progress described here would exist only within the socially constructed realities of the researchers or communities of researchers whose realities are in concordance with ours (Mir & Watson, 2001; Peters et al., 2013). Given the existence of these varying perspectives, we emphasize the realist perspectives guiding this study and the conclusions drawn from it. That said, the belief that reality is socially constructed necessarily accompanies its corollary that science itself consists of alternative ways of knowing, which in turn invites a pluralistic view of scientific progress (Chia, 2014). Thus, to the scientific pluralist, the realist views reflected in our paper are not “wrong” per se, but simply encompass one valid perspective of scientific progress among many. It is our hope that our conclusions about scientific progress and explicit theory testing in marketing will add to the ongoing dialogue about science, reality, and pluralism
