In the 1940s, the ‘modern synthesis’ (MS) of Darwinism and genetics cast genetic mutation and recombination as the source of variability from which environmental events naturally select the fittest, such ‘natural selection’ constituting the cause of evolution. Recent biology increasingly challenges this view by casting genes as followers and awarding the leading role in the genesis of adaptations to the agency and plasticity of developing phenotypes—making natural selection a consequence of other causal processes. Both views of natural selection claim to (...) capture the core of Darwin’s arguments in On the Origin of Species. Today, historians largely concur with the MS’s reading of Origin as a book aimed to prove natural selection the cause (vera causa) of adaptive change. This paper finds the evidence for that conclusion wanting. I undertake to examine the context and meaning of all Darwin’s known uses of the phrase vera causa, documenting in particular Darwin’s resistance to the pressure to prove natural selection a vera causa in letters written early in 1860. His resistance underlines the logical dependence of natural selection, an unobservable phenomenon, on the causal processes producing the observable events captured by the laws of inheritance, variation, and the struggle for existence, established in Chapters 1–3 of Origin. (shrink)

Many philosophers have argued that a hypothesis is better confirmed by some data if the hypothesis was not specifically designed to fit the data. ‘Prediction’, they argue, is superior to ‘accommodation’. Others deny that there is any epistemic advantage to prediction, and conclude that prediction and accommodation are epistemically on a par. This paper argues that there is a respect in which accommodation is superior to prediction. Specifically, the information that the data was accommodated rather than predicted suggests that the (...) data is less likely to have been manipulated or fabricated, which in turn increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is correct in light of the data. In some cases, this epistemic advantage of accommodation may even outweigh whatever epistemic advantage there might be to prediction, making accommodation epistemically superior to prediction all things considered. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss conditions of rationality for scientific research (SR) where "conditions" are understood as "necessary conditions". This will be done in the following way: First, I shall deal with the aim of SR since conditions of rationality (for SR) are to be understood as necessary means for reaching the aim (goal) of SR. Subsequently, the following necessary conditions will be discussed: Rational Communication, Methodological Rules, Ideals of Rationality and its Realistic Aspects, Methodological and Ontological (...) Conditions (Universality, Rules for Experiments, Causality), and Metaphysical Presuppositions and Extrapolations. (shrink)

The seventh section of Gregor Mendel’s famous 1866 paper contained a peculiar mathematical model, which predicted the expected ratios between the number of constant and hybrid types, assuming self-pollination continued throughout further generations. This model was significant for Mendel’s argumentation and was perceived as inseparable from his entire theory at the time. A close examination of this model reveals that it has several perplexing aspects which have not yet been systematically scrutinized. The paper analyzes those aspects, dispels some common misconceptions (...) regarding the interpretation of the model, and re-evaluates the role of this model for Mendel himself. In light of the resulting analysis, Mendel’s position between nineteenth-century hybridist tradition and twentieth-century population genetics is reassessed, and his sophisticated use of mathematics to legitimize his innovative theory is uncovered. (shrink)

The controversy between Biometricians and Mendelians has been called an inexplicable embarrassment since it revolved around the mistaken identification of Mendelian genetics with non-Darwinian saltationism, a mistake traced back to the non-Darwinian William Bateson, who introduced Mendelian analysis to British science. The following paper beings to unravel this standard account of the controversy by raising a simple question: Given that Bateson embraced evolution by natural selection and that he studied the causes of variation within a broadly Darwinian framework of problems (...) and questions, how are we to understand the claim that he was a non-Darwinian? A brief survey of possible responses to this question is followed by an alternative proposal: the controversy will be considered as a struggle among Darwinians about the future course of Darwinism. On this account, Darwin's own work led to the juncture at which Mendelians and Biometricians parted company, indeed, the Origin itself prepared the divergent methodological stances subsequently adopted by Bateson and his antagonists. The inexplicable embarrassment is dissolved through the parsimonious reconstruction of the profound substantive conflict between Biometricians and Mendelians as a chapter in the articulation and differentiation of the Darwinian research programme. (shrink)

Inheritance and variation were a major focus of Charles Darwin’s studies. Small inherited variations were at the core of his theory of organic evolution by means of natural selection. He put forward a developmental theory of heredity (pangenesis) based on the assumption of the existence of material hereditary particles. However, unlike his proposition of natural selection as a new mechanism for evolutionary change, Darwin’s highly speculative and contradictory hypotheses on heredity were unfruitful for further research. They attempted to explain many (...) complex biological phenomena at the same time, disregarded the then modern developments in cell theory, and were, moreover, faithful to the widespread conceptions of blending and so-called Lamarckian inheritance. In contrast, Mendel’s approaches, despite the fact that features of his ideas were later not found to be tenable, proved successful as the basis for the development of modern genetics. Mendel took the study of the transmission of traits and its causes (genetics) out of natural history; by reducing complexity to simple particulate models, he transformed it into a scientific field of research. His scientific approach and concept of discrete elements (which later gave rise to the notion of discrete genes) also contributed crucially to the explanation of the existence of stable variations as the basis for natural selection. (shrink)

Textbook descriptions of the foundations of Genetics give the impression that besides Mendel’s no other research on heredity took place during the nineteenth century. However, the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859, and the criticism that it received, placed the study of heredity at the centre of biological thought. Consequently, Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin himself, Francis Galton, William Keith Brooks, Carl von Nägeli, August Weismann, and Hugo de Vries attempted to develop theories of heredity under an evolutionary perspective, (...) and they were all influenced by each other in various ways. Nonetheless, only Nägeli became aware of Mendel’s experimental work; it has also been questioned whether Mendel even had the intention to develop a theory of heredity. In this article, a short presentation of these theories is made, based on the original writings. The major aim of this article is to suggest that Mendel was definitely not the only one studying heredity before 1900, if he even did this, as may be inferred by textbooks. Although his work had a major impact after 1900, it had no impact during the latter half of the nineteenth century when an active community of students of heredity emerged. Thus, textbooks should not only present the work of Mendel, but also provide a wider view of the actual history and a depiction of science as a social process. (shrink)

According to the traditional account Mendel's paper on pea hybrids reported a study of inheritance and its laws. Hence, Mendel came to be known as The Father of Genetics. This paper demonstrates that, in fact, Mendel's objective in his research was finding the empirical laws which describe the formation of hybrids and the development of their offspring over several generations. Having found these laws (and not the laws of inheritance that he is generally credited with) he proposed a theoretical scheme (...) involving the formation of germinal and pollen cells in hybrids and their combination in fertilization competent to explain why his laws took the form that they did. Mendel's research shows a pattern of development closely paralleling the stages of empirical investigation beginning at the level of qualitative description in common language rising through four levels of increasing abstraction and culminating in a fifth level, his simple mechanical theory. This mechanism met all the tests that a theory of this type must pass. In that respect Mendel was highly successful and this success might be the reason why he did not push his theory to a higher level, a sixth level involving the use of particulate determiners; despite this fact, Mendel was credited with having taken exactly that step. (shrink)

My conclusion is that Mendel deliberately, though without any real falsification, tried to suggest to his audience and readers an unlikely and substantially wrong reconstruction of the first and most important phase of his research. In my book I offer many reasons for this strange and surprising behavior,53 but the main argument rests on the fact of linkage. Mendelian genetics cannot account for linkage because it was based on the idea of applying probability theory to the problem of species evolution. (...) Central to the theory is the law of probability according to which the chance occurrence of a combination of independent events is the product of their separate probabilities. This is the common basis of Mendel's first and second laws, but this is why Mendel's second law on independent assortment is enunciated in too general a way. From Morgan's work we now know that characters may not always be independent if their genes are located very close one to the other on the same chromosome. And this was also the basis of Mendel's personal drama: he surely observed the effects of linkage, but he had no theoretical tools with which to explain it. So he presented his results in a logical structure consistent with the central idea of his theory. Had he described the real course of his experiments he would have had to admit that his law worked for only a few of the hundreds of Pisum characters — and it would thus have been considered more of an exception than a rule. This is why he insisted on the necessity of testing the law on other plants, and this is why in his second letter to Carl Nägeli he admits that the publication of his data was untimely and dangerous.54.We can argue that already in 1866 Mendel was less confident that his so-called second law had the same general validity as the first — and that later he lost his confidence altogether. Contemporary testimony indicates that in the end he became as skeptical as all his contemporaries as to the scientific relevance of his theory.55 But he was wrong. His research is in no way the fruit of methodological mistakes or forgery, and it remains a landmark in the history of science. He was only the victim of a strange destiny in which the use of probability theory was responsible, at the same time, for the strength and for the weakness of his theory. We must still consider him the father and founder of genetics. (shrink)

The origin and development of Punnett’s Square for the enumeration and display of genotypes arising in a cross in Mendelian genetics is described. Due to R. C. Punnett, the idea evolved through the work of the ‘Cambridge geneticists’, including Punnett’s colleagues William Bateson, E. R. Saunders and R. H. Lock, soon after the rediscovery of Mendel’s paper in 1900. These geneticists were thoroughly familiar with Mendel’s paper, which itself contained a similar square diagram. A previously-unpublished three-factor diagram by Sir Francis (...) Galton existing in the Bateson correspondence in Cambridge University Library is then described. Finally the connection between Punnett’s Square and Venn Diagrams is emphasized, and it is pointed out that Punnett, Lock and John Venn overlapped as Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Copious illustrations are given. (shrink)

This paper identifies three distinct narratives concerning scientific misconduct: a narrative of “individual impurity” promoted by those wishing to see science self-regulated; a narrative of “institutional impropriety” promoted by those seeking greater external control of science; and a narrative of “structural crisis” among those critiquing the entire process of research itself. The paper begins by assessing contemporary definitions and estimates of scientific misconduct. It emphasizes disagreements over such definitions and estimates as a way to tease out tension and controversy over (...) competing visions of scientific research. It concludes by noting that each narrative suggests a different approach for resolving misconduct, and that the difference inherent in these views may help explain much of the discord concerning unethical behavior in the scientific community. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the role of rational belief change theory in the philosophical understanding of experimental error. Today, philosophers seek insight about error in the investigation of specific experiments, rather than in general theories. Nevertheless, rational belief change theory adds to our understanding of just such cases: R. A. Fisher’s criticism of Mendel’s experiments being a case in point. After an historical introduction, the main part of this paper investigates Fisher’s paper from the point of view of rational (...) belief change theory: what changes of belief about Mendel’s experiment does Fisher go through and with what justification. It leads to surprising insights about what Fisher had done right and wrong, and, more generally, about the limits of statistical methods in detecting error. (shrink)

Johann Gregor Mendel read his paper, “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden”, to the Naturforschender Verein in Brno, in two parts, the first at the Society's meeting on 8 February 1865, and the second at the next meeting a month later. It was subsequently published in the Society's proceedings for the year 1865 which appeared in print in 1866.

Mendel's work in hybridization is ipso facto a study in inheritance. He is explicit in his interest to formulate universal generalizations, and at least in the case of the independent segregation of traits, he formulated his conclusions in the form of a law. Mendel did not discern, however, the inheritance of traits from that of the potential for traits. Choosing to study discrete non-overlapping traits, this did not hamper his efforts.

Objective—To determine the prevalence of, and attitudes towards, observed and personal research misconduct among newly appointed medical consultants. Design—Questionnaire study.Setting—Mersey region, United Kingdom.Participants—Medical consultants appointed between Jan 1995 and Jan 2000 in seven different hospital trusts (from lists provided by each hospital's personnel department). Main outcome measures—Reported observed misconduct, reported past personal misconduct and reported possible future misconduct.Results—One hundred and ninety-four replies were received (a response rate of 63.6%); 55.7% of respondents had observed some form of research misconduct; 5.7% of (...) respondents admitted to past personal misconduct; 18% of respondents were either willing to commit or unsure about possible future research misconduct. Only 17% of the respondents reported having received any training in research ethics. Anaesthetists reported a lower incidence of observed research misconduct (33.3%) than the rest of the respondents (61.5%) (p<0.05). Conclusion—There is a higher prevalence of observed and possible future misconduct among newly appointed consultants in the UK than in the comparable study of biomedical trainees in California. Although there is a need for more extensive studies, this survey suggests that there is a real and potential problem of research misconduct in the UK. (shrink)

In September 1950, the Genetics Society of America (GSA) dedicated its annual meeting to a "Golden Jubilee of Genetics" that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the rediscovery of Mendel's work. This program, originally intended as a small ceremony attached to the coattails of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) meeting, turned into a publicity juggernaut that generated coverage on Mendel and the accomplishments of Western genetics in countless newspapers and radio broadcasts. The Golden Jubilee merits historical attention as both (...) an intriguing instance of scientific commemoration and as an early example of Cold War political theatre. Instead of condemning either Lysenko or Soviet genetics, the Golden Jubilee would celebrate Mendel – and, not coincidentally, the practical achievements in plant and animal breeding his work had made possible. The American geneticists' focus on the achievements of Western genetics as both practical and theoretical, international, and, above all, non-ideological and non-controversial, was fully intended to demonstrate the success of the Western model of science to both the American public and scientists abroad at a key transition point in the Cold War. An implicit part of this article's argument, therefore, is the pervasive impact of the Cold War in unanticipated corners of postwar scientific culture. (shrink)

The tutelage of our mentors as scientists included the analogy that writing a good scientific paper was an exercise in storytelling that omitted unessential details that did not move the story forward or that detracted from the overall message. However, the advice to not get lost in the details had an important flaw. In science, it is the many details of the data themselves and the methods used to generate and analyze them that give conclusions their probative meaning. Facts may (...) sometimes slow or distract from the clarity, tidiness, intrigue, or flow of the narrative, but nevertheless they are important for the assessment of what was done, the trustworthiness of the science, and the meaning of the findings. Nevertheless, many critical elements and facts about research studies may be omitted from the narrative and become hidden from scholarly scrutiny. We describe a “baker’s dozen” shortfalls in which such elements that are pertinent to evaluating the validity of scientific studies are sometimes hidden in reports of the work. Such shortfalls may be intentional or unintentional or lie somewhere in between. Additionally, shortfalls may occur at the level of the individual or an institution or of the entire system itself. We conclude by proposing countermeasures to these shortfalls. (shrink)

Steve Fuller has argued that a scientific discovery will not be recognized unless it can be justified within the history of the relevant science. He cites Mendel's work on genetics, which was not recognized until thirty-five years after its publication, as an example. This essay argues that Mendel's work comes out of the tradition of work by both agricultural breeders and academics in nineteenth century Austria. Thus, Fuller is mistaken, and one must look elsewhere for the neglect of Mendel's work. (...) This essay also places Mendel's work within the philosophy of Jan Comenius, whose work was very likely known to Mendel.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------. (shrink)