Confirmation via Analogue Simulation: What Dumb Holes Could Tell Us about Gravity

In this article we argue for the existence of ‘analogue simulation’ as a novel form of scientific inference with the potential to be confirmatory. This notion is distinct from the modes of analogical reasoning detailed in the literature, and draws inspiration from fluid dynamical ‘dumb hole’ analogues to gravitational black holes. For that case, which is considered in detail, we defend the claim that the phenomena of gravitational Hawking radiation could be confirmed in the case that its counterpart is detected within experiments conducted on diverse realizations of the analogue model. A prospectus is given for further potential cases of analogue simulation in contemporary science.