Theory Change in Science: Strategies from Mendelian Genetics / Edition 1

by Lindley Darden

Overview

This challenging and innovative book examines the processes involved in the birth and development of new scientific ideas. The author has searched for strategies used by scientists for producing new theories, both those that yield a range of plausible hypotheses and ones that aid in narrowing that range. She goes on to focus on the development of the theory of the gene as a case study in scientific creativity. Her discussion of modern genetics greatly demystifies the philosophy of science, and establishes a realistic framework for understanding how scientists actually go about their work. This compelling work will interest a broad range of readers, including biologists and geneticists, along with historians and philosophers of science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195067972
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/12/1991
Series:	Monographs on the History and Philosophy of Biology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.44(w) x 9.56(h) x 1.06(d)

About the Author

University of Maryland, College Park

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Philosophical Preliminaries3. The Problem of Heredity4. Historical Introduction5. Mendelism, 1900-19036. Unit-characters, Pairs, and Dominance7. Boveri-Sutton Chromosome Theory8. Tests of Segregation9. Reduplication, Linkage, and Mendel's Second Law10. The Chromosome Theory and Mutation11. Unit-Characters to Factors to Genes12. Exemplars, Diagrams, and Diagnosis13. Genetics and Other Fields14. Summary of Strategies from the Historical Case15. General Strategies for Theory Change16. Implications for Further Work

Editorial Reviews

"This will be a welcome and useful book for all those interested in the history and philosophy of genetics. Although primarily a philosopher of science, Lindley Darden has crafted a unique and challenging fusion of an historical with a philosophical approach. Refreshingly, she is not concerned with what ought to have been done, but what was done. Darden's book has a number of strong points: perhaps the most important of which is its attempt to show the underlying conceptual changes through which Mendelian theory underwent after 1900 in terms of several general strategies advocated by its proponents." —Mendel Newsletter

"Darden traces the mutual influences of theory and experiment very well, giving due weight to alternative models that were later deemed inadequate. Darden is developing a rigorous procedure for understanding how theories are formulated, modified, accepted, and rejected." —The Quarterly Review of Biology

"A welcome and useful book for all those interested in the history and philosophy of genetics. . . . a unique and challenging fusion of a historical approach and a philosophical one. Darden has a good historical sense and presents to the reader questions and problems as they might have been viewed by investigators at the time, and not as we see them from today's perspective. . . . meticulous in illustrating the various strategies she describes by specific examples. . . . a refreshing approach." —Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"The most successful attempt I know to 'remove some of the mystery from the development of new scientific ideas.' Darden develops a theoretical model of scientific change from a detailed historical reconstruction. The merit of the book is to show the richness and the variability of the territory and to discuss in detail the adequacies and inadequacies of the proposed map. For its clarity, rational construction, and readability, this book should be used as a textbook. . . . will be a useful tool and a source of many insights for both historians of biology and philosophers of science. . . . has a great didactic value." —ISIS

"[Darden's] book demonstrates the enormous value that a careful study of the history of science has for philosophers of science. . . . There is little to find fault with in Darden's book. The historical treatment of the development of Mendelian theory is thorough. . . . It is impossible to do justice to the scope and richness of Darden's book in a short review; suffice it to say that her book exemplifies a successful strategy for bringing together the history of science and the philosophy of science."—Bradley E. Wilson, University of Pittsburgh

From the Publisher