August Weismann's theory of the germ-plasm and the problem of unconceived alternatives.
نویسنده
چکیده
I have argued elsewhere that scientific realism is most significantly challenged neither by traditional arguments from underdetermination of theories by the evidence, nor by the traditional pessimistic induction, but by a rather different historical pattern: our repeated failure to conceive of alternatives to extant scientific theories, even when those alternatives were both (1) well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and (2) sufficiently scientifically serious as to be later embraced by actual scientific communities. Here I use August Weismann's defense of his influential germ-plasm theory of inheritance to support my claim that this pattern characterizes the history of theoretical scientific investigation generally. Weismann believed that the germ-plasm must become disintegrated into its constituent elements over the course of development, I argue, only because he failed to conceive of any possible alternative mechanism of ontogenetic differentiation. This and other features of the germ-plasm theory, I suggest, reflect a still more fundamental failure to imagine that the germ-plasm might be a productive rather than expendable resource for the cell. Weismann's case provides impressive support for the problem of unconceived alternatives while rendering its challenge to scientific realism deeper and sharper in a number of important ways.
منابع مشابه
The Germ-Plasm: a Theory of Heredity (1893), by August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann [3] published Das Keimplasma: eine Theorie der Vererbung (The Germ-Plasm: a Theory of Heredity [2], hereafter The Germ-Plasm) while working at the University of Freiburg [4] in Freiburg, Germany in 1892. William N. Parker, a professor in the University College [5] of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff, UK, translated The Germ-Plasm into English in 1893. I...
متن کاملAugust Weismann on germ-plasm variation.
August Weismann is famous for having argued against the inheritance of acquired characters. However, an analysis of his work indicates that Weismann always held that changes in external conditions, acting during development, were the necessary causes of variation in the hereditary material. For much of his career he held that acquired germ-plasm variation was inherited. An irony, which is in te...
متن کاملDarwin's Pangenesis and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives
In earlier work I have argued that the most substantial threat to scientific realism arises from the problem of unconceived alternatives: the repeated failure of past scientists and scientific communities to conceive of alternatives to extant scientific theories, even when such alternatives were both (1) well confirmed by the evidence available at the time and (2) sufficiently scientifically se...
متن کاملFrancis Galton’s theory of inheritance and the problem of unconceived alternatives
Elsewhere I have argued that the most significant threat to scientific realism arises from what I call the problem of unconceived alternatives: the repeated failure of past scientists and scientific communities to even conceive of alternatives to extant scientific theories, even when such alternatives were both (1) well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and (2) sufficiently scient...
متن کاملThe development of Francis Galton's ideas on the mechanism of heredity.
Galton greeted Darwin's theory of pangenesis with enthusiasm, and tried to test the assumption that the heredity particles circulate in the blood by transfusion experiments on rabbits. The failure of these experiments led him to reject this assumption, and in the 1870s he developed an alternative theory of heredity, which incorporated those parts of Darwin's theory that did not involve the tran...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید
ثبت ناماگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید
ورودعنوان ژورنال:
- History and philosophy of the life sciences
دوره 27 2 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2005