Multiple simultaneous independent discoveries, so well enunciated by Robert K. Merton in the early 1960s but already discussed for several hundreds of years, is a classic concept in the sociology of science. In this paper, the concept of multiple simultaneous independent errors is proposed, analyzed, and discussed. The concept of Selective Pessimistic Induction is proposed and used to connect MIDs with MIEs. Five types of MIEs are discussed: multiple errors in the interpretation of experimental data or computational results; multiple misjudgments (...) of the value of another’s research results or conclusions; multiple cases of false anticipation of achieving a certain experimental result; multiples of ignoring or omitting relevant precedents; and multiple instances of failure due to a not-yet-conceived scientific concept or principle. Causal MIDs and MIEs are those that can be traced directly to antecedent knowledge. Acausal MIDs and MIEs are those involving a consequential and identifiable leap from antecedent knowledge. Examples of causal and acausal MIEs are provided, mostly but not exclusively from the discipline of chemistry. Comparisons are made between MIDs and MIEs. Topics for future research are discussed and implications of these concepts are proposed. (shrink)

Historians and sociologists of science usually discuss multiple independent inventions or multiple independent discoveries in terms of priority disputes among the inventors. But what should we make of the multiple invention of a technology that not only gave rise to very few priority disputes, but never worked and was rejected by each inventor’s contemporaries as soon as it was made public? This paper examines seven such situations in the history of botany. I devote particular attention to the inventors’ cultural and (...) educational backgrounds, in particular, the scholastic education most of them shared, through which they would have become familiar with Llullian combinatorics and the mnemonic names used to distinguish syllogistic moods. I also examine their conceptions of the roles of nomenclature in botany, their assumptions about how memory works, their awareness of other similar efforts, and their contemporaries’ reactions to their proposals. Finally, I reflect on the impacts that a consideration of multiple independent inventions of failed technologies may have on current approaches to the history and sociology of science. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn the controversy in 1989 over the reported achievement of cold nuclear fusion, parts of the physics and chemistry communities were opposed in both a theoretic and a professional competition. Physicists saw the chemists' announcement as an incursion into territory allocated to their own discipline and strove to restore the interdisciplinary boundaries that had previously held. The events that followed throw light on the manner in which scientists' knowledge claims and metascientific beliefs are affected by their membership of disciplinary (...) communities. In particular, the controversy offers evidence for a constructivist reinterpretation of the “division of nature into levels,” which is customarily held to underpin the division of science into disciplines. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn the controversy in 1989 over the reported achievement of cold nuclear fusion, parts of the physics and chemistry communities were opposed in both a theoretic and a professional competition. Physicists saw the chemists' announcement as an incursion into territory allocated to their own discipline and strove to restore the interdisciplinary boundaries that had previously held. The events that followed throw light on the manner in which scientists' knowledge claims and metascientific beliefs are affected by their membership of disciplinary (...) communities. In particular, the controversy offers evidence for a constructivist reinterpretation of the “division of nature into levels,” which is customarily held to underpin the division of science into disciplines. (shrink)

The way scientific discovery has been conceptualized has changed drastically in the last few decades: its relation to logic, inference, methods, and evolution has been deeply reloaded. The ‘philosophical matrix’ moulded by logical empiricism and analytical tradition has been challenged by the ‘friends of discovery’, who opened up the way to a rational investigation of discovery. This has produced not only new theories of discovery, but also new ways of practicing it in a rational and more systematic way. Ampliative rules, (...) methods, heuristic procedures and even a logic of discovery have been investigated, extracted, reconstructed and refined. The outcome is a ‘scientific discovery revolution’: not only a new way of looking at discovery, but also a construction of tools that can guide us to discover something new. This is a very important contribution of philosophy of science to science, as it puts the former in a position not only to interpret what scientists do, but also to provide and improve tools that they can employ in their activity. (shrink)

The main thrust of the argument of this thesis is to show the possibility of articulating a method of construction or of synthesis--as against the most common method of analysis or division--which has always been (so we shall argue) a necessary component of scientific theorization. This method will be shown to be based on a fundamental synthetic logical relation of thought, that we shall call inversion--to be understood as a species of logical opposition, and as one of the basic monadic (...) logical operators. Thus the major objective of this thesis is to This thesis can be viewed as a response to Larry Laudan's challenge, which is based on the claim that ``the case has yet to be made that the rules governing the techniques whereby theories are invented (if any such rules there be) are the sorts of things that philosophers should claim any interest in or competence at.'' The challenge itself would be to show that the logic of discovery (if at all formulatable) performs the epistemological role of the justification of scientific theories. We propose to meet this challenge head on: a) by suggesting precisely how such a logic would be formulated; b) by demonstrating its epistemological relevance (in the context of justification) and c) by showing that a) and b) can be carried out without sacrificing the fallibilist view of scientific knowledge. OBJECTIVES: We have set three successive objectives: one general, one specific, and one sub-specific, each one related to the other in that very order. (A) The general objective is to indicate the clear possibility of renovating the traditional analytico-synthetic epistemology. By realizing this objective, we attempt to widen the scope of scientific reason or rationality, which for some time now has perniciously been dominated by pure analytic reason alone. In order to achieve this end we need to show specifically that there exists the possibility of articulating a synthetic (constructive) logic/reason, which has been considered by most mainstream thinkers either as not articulatable, or simply non-existent. (B) The second (specific) task is to respond to the challenge of Larry Laudan by demonstrating the possibility of an epistemologically significant generativism. In this context we will argue that this generativism, which is our suggested alternative, and the simplified structuralist and semantic view of scientific theories, mutually reinforce each other to form a single coherent foundation for the renovated analytico-synthetic methodological framework. (C) The third (sub-specific) objective, accordingly, is to show the possibility of articulating a synthetic logic that could guide us in understanding the process of theorization. This is realized by proposing the foundations for developing a logic of inversion, which represents the pattern of synthetic reason in the process of constructing scientific definitions. (shrink)

It is a rather safe statement to claim that the social dimensions of the scientific process are accepted in a fair share of studies in the philosophy of science. It is a somewhat safe statement to claim that the social dimensions are now seen as an essential element in the understanding of what human cognition is and how it functions. But it would be a rather unsafe statement to claim that the social is fully accepted in the philosophy of mathematics. (...) And we are not quite sure what kind of statement it is to claim that the social dimensions in theories of mathematics education are becoming more prominent, compared to the psychological dimensions. In our contribution we will focus, after a brief presentation of the above claims, on this particular domain to understand the successes and failures of the development of theories of mathematics education that focus on the social and not primarily on the psychological. (shrink)

ArgumentUsing a striking example from the history of applied psychology, the concept of accident proneness, this paper suggests that historians of science may still find viable the idea of simultaneous discovery or construction of a scientific idea. Accident proneness was discovered independently in Germany and in Britain during the period of World War I. Later on, in 1926, the idea was independently formulated and named in both countries. The evidence shows not only striking simultaneity but true novelty and commensurateness of (...) the two formulations that crystallized at the same time in parallel, but distinctly separate, settings. (shrink)