Is the belief in atoms a pragmatic fallacy?

The claim that the world is made up of atoms goes beyond atoms just being a useful construct.  Physicists would present us with lots of indirect and direct evidence for the existence of distinct, fundamental units – what we call atoms.

I suspect Dalton, Thomson, Rutherford, Bohr, Schrödinger, and others would have trouble with the suggestion that atoms are part of a fallacy of any kind.

The problem with the way this is presented is that the existence of atoms is not just speculated. There's a wealth of empirical evidence that not only proves that they exist, but which tells us a great deal about their nature and the subatomic particles that make them up. There are even photographs of atoms that have been taken with electron microscopes.

That said, there are other areas of science where evidence has been used to create unproven hypotheticals, which has been used to create models which are useful. And, there have also been a lot of proto-scientific fields like alchemy that fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the universe, but still managed to create some useful innovations. In cases like these, it is possible that people are using the reification fallacy if they're treating hypothetical models as truth, but someone who's well-versed in the scientific method should be able to distinguish that from "best currently available explanation" and is willing to entertain evidence that might alter or disprove their models and hypotheses.

Hi, Eric!

What you are asking is whether it is fallacious to believe that the world is made up of atoms on the basis that many practical and useful results have come through claiming that it is.

Yes, that is a fallacious inference. This is because the inference leaves open the possibility that the denial that the world is made up of atoms does not lead to a loss of those same practical and useful results.  

Thank you, Eric. 

From, Kaiden

I am lost on this one. A few confusing things:

1) If the world is made up of atoms, then they must exist. No need for the middle premise. If anything, it is nonsensical or a non sequitur .

2) Atoms are not an just an abstract concept - they have a physical reality in the universe. Physical = "Something that exists in the material world, independent of our mental models, and can be detected or measured through empirical means."