When two or more (groups of) researchers independently investigating the same domain arrive at the same result, a multiple discovery occurs. The pervasiveness of multiple discoveries in science suggests the intuition that they are in some sense inevitable—that one should view them as results that force themselves upon us, so to speak. We argue that, despite the intuitive force of such an “inevitabilist insight,” one should reject it. More specifically, we distinguish two facets of the insight and argue that: (a) the profusion of multiple discoveries in scientific practice does not support the inevitabilist side of the inevitability/contingency of science controversy; and (b) the crucial role of background knowledge in scientific inquiry complicates the attempt to interpret the pervasiveness of multiple discoveries in realist terms.

当两个或多个（组）研究人员独立调查同一领域得出相同结果时，就会出现多重发现。科学中多项发现的普遍性暗示了一种直觉，即它们在某种意义上是不可避免的——可以说，人们应该将它们视为将自身强加于我们的结果。我们认为，尽管这种“必然主义洞察力”具有直观的力量，但人们应该拒绝它。更具体地说，我们区分了洞察力的两个方面，并认为：(a) 科学实践中的大量发现并不支持科学争论的必然性/偶然性的必然性；(b) 背景知识在科学探究中的关键作用使用现实主义术语解释多项发现的普遍性的尝试变得复杂。