&HPS5

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/26065

Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: Fifth Conference

26–28 June, 2014

Institute Vienna Circle, Austria

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 26

The Unity of Science: Two Hundred Years of Controversy
(2014) Creath, Richard; Creath@asu.edu; Uebel, Thomas
Mechanical molecular models and haptic reasoning
(2014) Mathieu Charbonneau; mathieu.charbonneau1@gmail.com; Katherina Kinzel
The use of physical models of molecular structures as research tools has been central to the development of biochemistry and molecular biology. Intriguingly, it has received little attention from scholars of science. In this paper, I argue that these physical models are not mere three-dimensional representations but that they are in fact very special research tools: they are cognitive augmentations. Despite the fact that they are external props, these models serve as cognitive tools that augment and extend the modeler’s cognitive capacities and performance in molecular modeling tasks. This cognitive enhancement is obtained because of the way the modeler interacts with these models, the models’ materiality contributing to the solving of the molecule’s structure. Furthermore, I argue that these material models and their component parts were designed, built and used specifically to serve as cognitive facilitators and cognitive augmentations.
Heuristic Reevaluation of the Bacterial Hypothesis of Peptic Ulcer Disease in the 1950s
(2014) Dunja Šešelja; Christian Straßer; d.seselja@tue.nl and christian.strasser@rub.de; Katherina Kinzel
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century the research on peptic ulcer disease (PUD) focused on two rivaling hypothesis: the “acidity” and the “bacterial” one. According to the received view, the latter was dismissed during the 1950s only to be revived with Warren’s and Marshall’s discovery of Helicobacter pylori in the 1980s. In this paper we investigate why the bacterial hypothesis was largely abandoned in the 1950s, and whether there were good epistemic reasons for its dismissal. Of special interest for our research question is Palmer’s 1954 large-scale study, which challenged the bacterial hypothesis with serious counter-evidence, and which by many scholars is considered as the shifting point in the research on PUD. However, we show that: (1) The perceived refutatory impact of Palmer’s study was disproportionate to its methodological rigor. This undermines its perceived status as a crucial experiment against the bacterial hypothesis. (2) In view of this and other considerations we argue that the bacterial hypothesis was worthy of pursuit in the 1950s.
Neither Logical Empiricism nor Vitalism, but Organicism: What the Philosophy of Biology Was
(2014) Daniel Nicholson; Richard Gawne; dan.j.nicholson@gmail.com and richard.gawne@kli.ac.at; Katherina Kinzel
Philosophy of biology is often said to have emerged in the last third of the twentieth century. Prior to this time, it has been alleged that the only authors who engaged philosophically with the life sciences were either logical empiricists who sought to impose the explanatory ideals of the physical sciences onto biology, or vitalists who invoked mystical agencies in an attempt to ward off the threat of physicochemical reduction. These schools paid little attention to actual biological science, and as a result philosophy of biology languished in a state of futility for much of the twentieth century. The situation, we are told, only began to change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a new generation of researchers began to focus on problems internal to biology, leading to the consolidation of the discipline. In this paper we challenge this widely accepted narrative of the history of philosophy of biology. We do so by arguing that the most important tradition within early twentieth-century philosophy of biology was neither logical empiricism nor vitalism, but the organicist movement that flourished between the First and Second World Wars. We show that the organicist corpus is thematically and methodologically continuous with the contemporary literature in order to discredit the view that early work in the philosophy of biology was unproductive, and we emphasize the desirability of integrating the historical and contemporary conversations into a single, unified discourse.
Styles of Reasoning in Biology: The Case of Models in Membrane and Cell Biology
(2014) Axel Gelfert; Jacob Mok; axel@gelfert.net; Jane Maienschein
This paper investigates one of the great achievements of twentiethcentury cell biology: determining the structure of the cell membrane. This case differs in important ways from the better-known case of the identification of the DNA double helix as the carrier of genetic information, especially regarding the evaluation of potential evidence in light of prior theoretical commitments. Whereas it has been argued that adherence to a structural hypothesis enabled Watson and Crick to ignore a surplus of (potentially confusing) empirical findings, similar adherence to an elegant and universal structural hypothesis, we argue, unduly shielded the so-called ‘unit-membrane’ model from legitimate challenges on the basis of known phenomena.
Negotiating a causal-historical theory of reference: the emergence of the ‘type method’ in 19th century biological taxonomy
(2014) Joeri Witteveen; jw@ind.ku.dk; Jane Maienschein
Values, Facts and Methodologies: A Case Study in Philosophy of Economics
(2014) Thomas Uebel; thomas.uebel@manchester.ac.uk; Elisabeth Nemeth
“Control(led) experiments” in historical and philosophical perspective
(2014) Jutta Schickore; jschicko@indiana.edu; Martin Kusch
Retreading the Path of Science: the case of independent motions
(2014) Monica Solomon; monisolo@stanford.edu; Martin Kusch
Sensing the Unknown: Historicising the Discoverability of the Olfactory Receptors within the Life on an Experimental System
(2014) Ann-Sophie Barwich; abarwich@iu.edu; David Miller
This paper tells the story of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), one of the most important scientific objects in contemporary biochemistry and molecular biology. By looking at how cell membrane receptors turned from a speculative concept into a central element in modern biochemistry over the past 40 years, we revisit the role of manipulability as a criterion for entity realism in wet-lab research. The central argument is that manipulability as a condition for reality becomes meaningful only once scientists have decided how to conceptually coordinate measurable effects distinctly to a specific object. We show that a scientific entity, such as GPCRs, is assigned varying degrees of reality throughout different stages of its discovery. The criteria of its reality, we further claim, cannot be made independently of the question about how this object becomes a standard by which the reality of neighbouring elements of enquiry is evaluated.
Qualitative novelty and the scientific revolution: The emergence of the concept of pressure
(2014) Alan Chalmers; alan.chalmers@sydney.edu.au; Jed Z. Buchwald
Looking at Cells around 1900: Seeing Complex Systems
(2014) Jane Maienschein; maienschein@asu.edu; Friedrich Stadler
Reconsidering Priestley’s Defense of Phlogiston
(2014) Amy A. Fisher; afisher@pugetsound.edu; Elisabeth Nemeth
Scientific Inference and the Earth’s Interior: Harold Jeffreys and Dorothy Wrinch at Cambridge
(2014) Teru Miyake; tmiyake@ntu.edu.sg; Manfred Laubichler
Checks-and-balances: orbital symmetry and quantitative methods in late twentieth century quantum chemistry
(2014) Grant Fisher; Buhm Soon Park; fisher@kaist.ac.kr; Mauricio Suarez
Kelvin’s dictum revived: the intelligibility of mechanisms
(2014) Henk W. de Regt; henk.deregt@ru.nl; Jed Z. Buchwald
Jean Perrin and the Philosophers’ Stories: A Case Study on the Role of Case Studies in &HPS
(2014) Klodian Coko; kchoko@indiana.edu; Theodore Arabatzis
Stimulus Error and the Red Herring of Introspection
(2014) Uljana Feest; feestphilos.uni-hannover.de; Jutta Schickore
The Modelling Attitude and its Roots in 19th Century Science
(2014) Mauricio Suarez; msuarez@ los.ucm.es; Hasok Chang
I locate the origins of the contemporary model- based scientific methodology in the ‘modelling attitude’ of philosophically minded scientists in the second half of the 19th century. I distinguish an English speaking modelling school (identified with William Thomson, James Clerk Maxwell, and their followers in Victorian British physics), and a German- speaking modelling school (identified with Hermann Von Helmholtz and his Berlin school, as well as Heinrich Hertz and Ludwig Boltzmann). I argue that both schools share a commitment to the ‘relativity’ of knowledge, and a consequent emphasis on reasoning via models as the main method for the acquisition of knowledge about the natural world.
The Stimulus Error and Experimental Design: The Manipulation of Perceptual “Set”
(2014) Gary Hatfield; hatfield@sas.upenn.edu; Jutta Schickore

Browse

Recent Submissions