Abstract
Understanding the origin of genetics has been a persistent problem in the history and philosophy of biology: Is Mendel the founder of genetics? If so, in what sense? What was Mendel’s contribution to the origin of genetics? What role did Mendel’s work play in the “rediscovery” in 1900? What was the contribution made by the “rediscoverers” to the origin of genetics? What is a best way to analyse and interpret the origin of genetics, from a philosophical point of view? This chapter provides a new philosophical account of the early development of genetics. I begin with a critical review of the theory-based analyses of the origin of genetics. Then inspired by the Kuhnian analyses, I develop an exemplar-based account of the origin of genetics based on a new interpretation of exemplar.
Mendel’s paper illustrates an exemplar for how to set up an empirical practice.
(Moss 2003, 23)
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Notes
- 1.
Note that (1), (2), (3), and (4) are premises; (5) is obtained from (3) and (4) by using the principles of probability; (6) is derived from (2) and (5).
- 2.
For more discussion, see Chap. 2.
- 3.
For more discussion on Mendel and hybridism, see Sect. 2.2.
- 4.
However, Nickles (2012) still pays insufficient attention to articulate the process of the construction of an exemplar .
- 5.
There are a few attempts to employ the notion of exemplar to analyse some history cases. For example, Darden (1991) analyses the explanatory virtue of the hybrid crossing in terms of exemplar, while Jeffery Skopek (2011) explores the pedagogical virtue of Mendel’s work on peas in terms of exemplar. Unfortunately, the exemplars, for both Darden and Skopek, are simply construed as the examples in the textbook.
- 6.
Nickles (2012, 128) asks a similar question: “What makes something an exemplar , a problem-cum-solution of the sort that is selected for inclusion in a textbook, widely cited by experts in the field, or the design of an instrument or a technique?”
- 7.
As I have mentioned, Kuhn (1977) lists five main characteristics of a good theory (or a paradigm). However, the theory (or the paradigm) in this context refers obviously to a disciplinary matrix rather than an exemplar .
- 8.
The concept of exemplar is certainly applicable to many disciplines, including logic and mathematics. But the one discussed in this chapter is only applicable to the empirical sciences.
- 9.
An example of the patterns of reasoning is the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) model of confirmation, which applies an H-D model of logic to confirm a hypothesis by designing and undertaking the experiments.
- 10.
Note that I have to emphasise here that there is no universal account of theoretical construction. We have to delve into the historical context to study the process of hypothesisation in any particular case. For example, some hypothesisaitons are better characterised as modelling, while others are better as the discovery of mechanism.
- 11.
I regard a scientific school as a research community, which is similar to Kuhn’s paradigm (1970), Lakatos’ research programme (1978), Laudan’s research tradition (1977), and Chang’s system of practice (2012). Ptolemaic astronomy, Newtonian mechanics, and Mendelian genetics are good examples of scientific schools.
- 12.
Although I have emphasised that one of the most important contributions of an exemplary practice is the definition of research problems, it is unlikely for a scientist to begin his studies without an initial problem, which was a well-defined research problem. These initial problems might not be interesting at all for the subsequent development of the studies. A clear example is that the initial problem that inspired Morgan to conduct experiments on Drosophila was in search for an experimental approach to evolution, but he finally made a great achievement on solving the problems of Drosophila’s heredity. Also, it is not unusual that an initial problem is re-formulated in new conceptual frameworks.
- 13.
For the full articulation of “usefulness”, see Chap. 6.
- 14.
For an in-depth analysis of the historical development of the concept of dominance, see Chap. 8.
- 15.
It is worth noting that correspondence is a weaker notion than determination. Mendel never used the notion of determination, or causation in MH3.
- 16.
It should be noted that as I have mentioned in Chap. 2, Mendel was not the first to apply the mathematical/statistical approach to biological studies.
- 17.
I have to emphasise that the origin of genetics from Mendel to Bateson discussed in this paper is definitely not a complete and comprehensive picture of the origin of genetics. As Olby (1985) has suggested, there are multiple origins of genetics. What I focus on here is only one path to genetics. More precisely speaking, my task is to explore a new exemplar-based way to analyse and understand the development from Mendel’s (1866), de Vries’ (1900a, 1900b, 1900c), Correns’ (1900), Tschermak’s (1900a, 1900b) to Bateson’s work (1902).
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Shan, Y. (2020). Exemplarising the Origin of Genetics. In: Doing Integrated History and Philosophy of Science: A Case Study of the Origin of Genetics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 320. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50617-9_5
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