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Pence Default 2 How Not to Fight About Theory: The Debate Between Biometry and Mendelism in Nature, 1890–1915 Charles H. Pence Université catholique de Louvain Institut supérieur de philosophie [email protected] To appear in Ramsey, . and !e "loc#, A., eds. The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science. Pitts%ur&h' University o( Pitts%ur&h Press. All citations should %e to the )nal version. Abstract *volutionary theory in the late nineteenth century +as mar#ed %y controversy over the +ay in +hich !ar+in,s insi&hts could %e reconciled +ith theories o( heredity, particularly (ollo+in& the rediscovery o( the +or# o( -endel. !ar+in,s proposal o( common descent +as quic#ly accepted, %ut natural selection,s adoption +as delayed as a result o( this de%ate. T+o schools o( thou&ht rapidly developed' one .the /%iometricians01 usin& statistics to descri%e patterns o( inheritance, and the other .the /"atesonians,0 later the /-endelians01 usin& morphological study and searchin& (or discontinuous variation. 2e traditional history o( this de%ate has (ocused on its #ey players .most nota%ly 3illiam "ateson, 4arl Pearson, and 3.5.R. 3eldon1. 6ociologists o( science have help(ully e7panded this picture to include a +ider array o( %iolo&ists and emphasi8e the role o( the /conversion0 o( lesser9#no+n %iolo&ists (rom %iometry to -endelism. In this chapter, I +ill e7pand our picture (urther, %y considerin& the structure o( the de%ate as it developed in the articles and correspondence o( Nature. 2e /net+or# o( discourse0 in this literature, as revealed %y di&ital tools, sho+s us surprisin& (eatures o( the +ay this ar&ument un(olded. 5ar (rom %ein& a central topic in the %iology literature o( the day, as historians o:en have assumed, those ar&uin& over theories o( heredity recede into the %ac#&round, en&a&in& +ith (e+er other mem%ers o( their )elds. 3hile this di&ital analysis is not the end o( the story, it o;ers us a variety o( su&&estive questions (or (uture historical, philosophical, and sociolo&ical +or# on this crucial period in the development o( evolution. #eywords: 2omas 4uhn, theoretical crisis, theory chan&e, &enetics, -endelism, %iometry, 3. 5. R. 3eldon, 4arl Pearson, 3illiam "ateson 2omas 4uhn,s massively in<uential Structure of Scientific Revolutions .=>>?1 proposed a pattern (or the development o( a scienti)c theory no+ intimately (amiliar to philosophers and historians o( science. $:er the initial stru&&les to (ormulate a uni)ed theory, a paradi m emer&es in an area 1 / 31 Preprint, to appear in Ramsey, . and !e "loc#, $., eds. The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science. Pitts%ur&h' University o( Pitts%ur&h Press. o( study (or the )rst time. 2is paradi&m consists not @ust o( theoretical content, %ut also metaphysical and epistemolo&ical commitments, text%oo#s and patterns o( trainin&, and a set o( pro%lems that, it is expected, the paradi&m +ill %e a%le to solve, alon& +ith the #inds o( solutions (or those pro%lems that +ould %e deemed accepta%le. 2e solvin& o( those pro%lems constitutes the everyday +or# o( most scientists, 4uhn,s normal science. 6hould one o( those pro%lems persistently resist solution .or dissolution1, a )eld mi&ht enter a state o( crisis! +here active replacements (or the dominant paradi&m are investi&ated and their (uture prospects evaluated. I( a ne+ paradi&m is (ound to outper(orm the rulin& orthodo7y, +e have a revolution, and the ne+ +orld vie+ %ecomes dominant in its place.= 2is is the standard picture that +e present to our under&raduates. !espite its nearly trite status, ho+ever, it still provides us +ith an interestin& point o( departure (or analysis o( any instance o( theory chan&e. 5or one, 4uhn leaves the period o( crisis tantali8in&ly under9 developed. 3hy do crises really emer&e? Ho+ do they disappearA 3hat are the varyin& contri%utions o( social (actors li#e persuasion, empirical results provided %y /nature,0 and novel theoretical developments? 3hat o( the %o&eyman o( 4uhn,s /incommensura%ility,0 the idea that scientists operatin& in di;erent paradi&ms in some sense /practice their trades in di;erent +orlds0 .4uhn =>>?, =BC1, necessarily tal#in& past one another,s internali8ed +ays o( not @ust interpretin&, %ut o( seein scienti)c dataA Here, it seems, is a place +here the intervention o( di&ital methods mi&ht &enuinely %e 1 All of this sounds a bit evolutionary, of course, a fact which was not lost on either Kuhn himself (who draws the analogy at the end of Structure), nor on David Hull, who significantly expanded on the analogy between scientific theory change and evolution in his Science as a Process (1988). 2 / 31 Preprint, to appear in Ramsey, . and !e "loc#, $., eds. The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science. Pitts%ur&h' University o( Pitts%ur&h Press. a%le to shed li&ht on the su%@ect. 5or crises do not only ta#e place in the heads o( scientists, in their noteboo#s, or the e7periments per(ormed in their la%oratories D they are also played out in the literature that these scientists produce. *specially since the middle o( the nineteenth century .+ith the proli(eration o( (requently pu%lished scienti)c ma&a8ines li#e Science, Nature, or The "merican Naturalist1, the @ournal literature is perhaps even the primary venue in +hich such de%ates have ta#en place. 3e should thus %e a%le to explore the si&nature o( crises as they happen in these pu%lications, and precisely such an exploration is my aim in this chapter. I +ill examine a particularly divisive and pu%lic debate in the late-nineteenth century study o( inheritance, a si&ni)cant portion o( +hich too# place in the correspondence pa&es o( Nature, and endeavor to dra+ some speculative conclusions (or the structure o( scienti)c communities durin& theoretical crises. "y analy8in& the net+or# o( author9mentions in Nature in this time period, +e reveal ne+ and interestin& relationships %et+een the relevant players D di;erent (rom %oth the %asic net+or#s o( paradi&m mem%ership and the more complex net+or#s o( trainin& and education D and one that supports .al%eit tentatively1 some conclusions a%out ho+ community mem%ers react to sustained theoretical disa&reement. $ele"ting a Case Study "efore I lay out the history o( the episode that I,ll %e analy8in&, ho+ever, I should o;er a (e+ +ords a%out +hy I selected it. 6ome o( my reasons +ere purely sel)sh D I have already +ritten on 3 / 31 Preprint, to appear in Ramsey, . and !e "loc#, $., eds. The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science. Pitts%ur&h' University o( Pitts%ur&h Press. this debate rather extensively, and so am personally quite (amiliar +ith it .Pence EC==, EC=B1. "ut it also has a num%er o( si&ni)cant, independent advanta&es. 5irst o( all, +e have a standard, /potted0 history o( the crisis D limited and pro%lematic thou&h it may %e .a%out +hich more in the next section1 D o;ered %y 3illiam Provine,s o:en9cited %oo# on the history o( population &enetics .=>F=1, as +ell as a detailed sociolo&ical account, than#s to 4yun&9-an 4im .=>>G1. 6econd, the debate ta#es place over a (airly delimited time period .rou&hly =H>CD=>=C1, and a si&ni)cant part o( it occurs in a sin&le @ournal, Nature.E 5inally, that time period lies (ully in the pu%lic domain, some+hat amelioratin& copyri&ht concerns. *ach o( these (eatures ma#es a di&ital9humanities analysis o( this case si&ni)cantly easier, more li#ely to yield (ruit(ul results, and %etter contextuali8ed. The Biometry-Mendelism Debate 2e pu%lication o( Charles !ar+in,s On the Ori in of Species .=HB>1 did not precipitate the #ind o( immediate, +holesale conversion to !ar+in,s +orld9vie+ +hich that +or#,s lofty stature in the contemporary scienti)c canon mi&ht su&&est. 2e Ori in +as, to %e sure, ama8in&ly successful, and quic#ly convinced the vast ma@ority o( +or#in& naturalists o( the truth o( one o( !ar+in,s t+o main points D common descent! the claim that all li(e is descended, in a tree-li#e structure, (rom some small num%er o( distant ancestors. "ut this +as only part o( !ar+in,s ar&ument .(or more on the development o( !ar+in,s vie+s, see -urdoc# et al., chapter I, this volume1. He also o;ered 2 Access to the Nature corpus is provided courtesy of Nature Publishing Group to the evoText Project (Ramsey and Pence 2016), with thanks. 4 / 31 Preprint, to appear in Ramsey, . and !e "loc#, $., eds. The Dynamics of Science: Computational Frontiers in History and Philosophy of Science. Pitts%ur&h' University o( Pitts%ur&h Press. a mechanism (or diversi)cation and the eventual production o( novel species D natural selection D and it +as much less accepted in the short term. In a period o:en, thou&h pro%lematically, called the /eclipse o( !ar+inism0 .Hu7ley =>GEJ "o+ler =>>EJ %ut see Lar&ent ECC>1, the (ate o( selection +a7ed and .mostly1 +aned, as it con(ronted a variety o( interestin& criticisms, until the development o( early population &enetics in the =>ECs and =>ICs #ic#ed o; the -odern 6ynthesis that still &rounds much o( evolutionary %iolo&y today.I Kne o( the most si&ni)cant issues that pla&ued natural selection +as this: it seemed to many impossi%le to believe that selection +as po+er(ul enou&h to produce ne+ species, in the absence o( an understandin& o( the mechanism o( variation.
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