Chapter 36 Chapter 20 Conclusion: Facing Science-1

Now people tend to see more and more "science of science" (science of science) the word.What does it mean?Scientology is an emerging discipline that combines sociology of science, history of science, philosophy of science and psychology of scientists to give a general explanation of the activities of scientists and the development and methodology of science.This includes summarizing both the intellectual growth and work style or styles of great scientists, as well as aspects of the army of other scientists who have contributed to the progressive advancement of scientific knowledge.

Philosophers of science and sociologists of science have raised many questions and answered many of them to some extent. For example, what are the laws governing the origin, prosperity, decline, and replacement of new research traditions?Was there a scientific revolution? If so, is their rise and fall consistent with Thomas Kuhn's view?What factors in the environmental context of science and scientists are critical to scientific revolutions (or at least scientific innovations)?Compared with new technologies, new observation methods, new experimental methods and new concepts, which one is more important to scientific progress?Also, is conducting new experiments and collecting new observations just to test new hypotheses or theories?

From the past to the present, no scientific theory has been generally accepted once it is proposed.Logical positivism has a comprehensive doctrine of science, involving discovery and explanation.However, since the extensive critique of it over the last decade has shown that it would have to be greatly revised if it were to hold water, I will not go into detail here.Many people have made great efforts to replace this theory (such as Popper, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Laudan, etc.), but the synthesis is far from complete. Some of the observational studies and generalizations of sociologists of science (eg Merton) are generally good; and in fact state of the art, given the problems they deal with.However, they deal with quite specific issues, such as multiple independent discoveries or the role of priority in reward systems for scientists.No sociologist can or will be able to claim that we have a comprehensive sociology of science.All we have hitherto is a "preparation for the sociology of science."

Works that have been published dealing with Scientology in the past are heavily biased toward the physical sciences.The observations and comments that follow may serve as an attempt to direct the biological sciences more definitively into this field.Unfortunately I have not yet been able to write a comprehensive scientology of the biological sciences, all I have been able to do is add and supplement, as Schopenhauer called his famous book.I hope this encourages other academics to do better than me. 20.1 Scientists and the Scientific Environment The development of science is the process of the development of scientists' ideas.Every new or revised idea is born in the mind of a different scientist.Historians are well aware of this and it is reflected in scientific terms, when we refer, for example, to Mendel's laws, Darwinism, or Einstein's theory of relativity.For the sake of simplicity, the ideas of great scholars or conceptual innovators are often presented in the history of science in a form that seems fixed and rock-solid.When referring to Lamarck in 1809 or Darwin in 1859 it seems that the development of Darwin's ideas, doubts, hesitation, inconsistencies, contradictions, and repeated changes in thought do not exist, and his thought development is said to be logical chain of inferences and conclusions.This view was found to be very wrong when historians began to critically study Darwin's writings and correspondence, especially when they analyzed Darwin's notes and unpublished manuscripts (1975; 1980).

Limoges (1970), Gruber (1974), Kohn (1975; 1980), Herbert (1977), Schweber (1977) and Ospovat (1979) all successively pointed out that the traditional way of introducing the birth of Darwin's theory is easy to mislead people.For example, Darwin's views on speciation changed dramatically in the 1850s (Sulloway, 1979), and he believed in soft inheritance more in the 1870s than in the 1850s. It is a feature of the minds of many eminent scientists that they undergo a long and often iterative maturation process. For example, Linnaeus initially emphasized the immutability and eternity of species, but in his later years he proposed the theory of the origin of species through hybridization.Lamarck, at the age of 55, was still a firm believer in the invariance of species, and then he admitted evolution, but in the next 15 or 20 years he switched from a linear evolution to a tree-like evolution concept.Renxi, Sammler, and Mayer were all neo-Lamarckists when they were young, but later they fully accepted the theory of natural selection.In fact some great scientists tend to change their views most often and most radically.It is impossible to understand the influence of a thinker's ideas throughout his life without understanding the permutations and combinations of his thoughts.The same is true for philosophers. Kant in "On the Celestial Bodies" (1755), (1781) and Kant in "The Critique of Judgment" (1790) are actually three completely different thinkers.There may be very few scientists who do not change their main point of view throughout their lives.As far as I know, no one has specifically studied the sharp shifts in the minds of great scientists (some of them genuine shifts).There are still many unanswered questions in this regard.Do such changes occur at particular ages with particular frequency?What is causing these changes?Are some scientists really going "backwards" in their later years?

The explanations made by scientists are all hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative.These hypotheses must always be tested and revised if found to be inappropriate.Thus, scientists, especially famous ones, changing their minds are far from being a weakness but a clear evidence of their constant attention to the issue and their ability to test their hypotheses over and over again. The personalities of different scientists are also different, and there are great differences, which influence their research styles. Ostwald (1909) divided scientists into two categories: romantic and orthodox.Romantics are quick-witted, and their ideas are endless and fleeting.Some of these ideas are highly original, while others are banal or even ludicrous.A scientist of this type generally does not hesitate to discard his less gratifying thoughts or ideas.The orthodox, by contrast, is preoccupied with tinkering with what already exists.They are happy to stick to a problem and stick to it.They are also willing to preserve the status quo. According to statistical analysis, Solloway (1982) pointed out that there are great differences in the personalities of the eldest son and the eldest daughter and their younger siblings.The eldest son and eldest daughter tend to be conservative, which is often in line with Ostwald's orthodox type.In scientific revolutions they tend to defend existing models.Younger children are different, leaning towards revolution and proposing unorthodox doctrines.

No one described more precisely the workings of the accomplished scientist's mind than Darwin.He has repeatedly said that he cannot make observations without "guessing".Everything he sees raises questions in his head.Another characteristic of accomplished scientists is their flexibility, the willingness to discard a theory or hypothesis when evidence shows it to be invalid. Some scholars who carried out evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s found that their original views were wrong and discarded them without hesitation.A third characteristic of almost all great scientists is that their interests are quite broad.They can use some concepts, facts and ideas from adjacent fields to build relevant theories in their field.They make full use of analogy and attach importance to comparative research.

Medawar (1967) very wisely emphasized how important it is for scientists to have a viable research program.For example, all the geneticists from Negri to Weismann to Bateson failed to come up with a complete theory of heredity because they wanted to explain both heredity (transmission of genetic material from generation to generation) and developmental phenomena.It is not surprising that they want to do this, since they almost always study genetics from an embryological perspective.Morgan's wisdom lies in his leaving aside the question of developmental physiology (although he himself comes from the field of embryology) and concentrating on the problem of the transmission of genetic material.His pioneering discoveries from 1910 to 1915 were entirely due to this clever choice.They simply ignored the developmental questions raised by his and his colleagues' discoveries.This decision was very fortunate, because some of the questions, such as why genes in cis and in trans have different effects (position effects) were not understood until more than 50 years later.

There are many potential reasons why a problem is not easy to solve all at once.The technical means to analyze these issues may not yet exist.Some concepts, especially those that call upon neighboring fields, may also not have been developed.Under such circumstances, the unresolved problems can only be treated as "black boxes", and the black boxes can only be opened to solve the problems when the time is ripe. This is how Darwin dealt with the problem of the cause of infinite variation in nature. Speaking of Weissmann, I mentioned earlier that his second strategic mistake was not breaking a problem into its components and solving them one by one.For example, the study of genetic phenomena cannot make progress unless genetic transmission and development are properly separated.A complex problem must be divided into its components. This is true for the study of scientific as well as philosophical questions; previously there was no separation of the teleological concept into its four components (see Chapter 2) and no distinction between taxonomic and taxonomic units ( Chapter 4) are but two examples.

Another research strategy, which is more detrimental to scientific progress in the long run, is to perpetually repeat discoveries that no longer need to be proven. The famous comparative anatomists Haeckel, Huxley and Gegenbauer in the 19th century successfully demonstrated Darwin's theory of common ancestors using comparative anatomy methods.Yet long after objections to the doctrine of common ancestry have faded away, some comparative anatomists still consider establishing homology and exploring common ancestry as their sole purpose (Coleman, 1980).Only the Severtsov school in the Soviet Union has moved away from this tradition to some extent, as has Boker, who raised some unusual questions but unfortunately they were also limited by his Lamarckian philosophical views.It took almost a hundred years after Darwin to pass D. D． Davis, W． The work of Book and others rejuvenated comparative anatomy only after it raised new questions.This weakness is also felt by the Morgan School when reading their writings after 1920.Facing Bateson's censure, the main focus of their research was still to prove the correctness of the theory of chromosomal inheritance, although at this time this theory had undoubtedly been accepted by most scholars.Thus, important advances in genetics in the 1830s and 1940s were made by other schools of thought.

Another poor research strategy is to limit yourself to simply piling up and describing facts before using them to form new generalizations or concepts.It is not for nothing that detractors of taxonomy ridicule taxonomists who only know how to describe new species, as if taxonomy is all about describing new species and has no other purpose.Inventorying biodiversity is unquestionably necessary, but this Linnean phase is required to be crossed by any discerning systematicist.This criticism applies almost equally to some practitioners in every branch of biology.The “quadrats” used by early ecologists to carry out ecological surveys, which were criticized, were also purely descriptive research activities of this kind. Scientific research is similar to human activities in many aspects, and it also has its law of diminishing returns. Excellent scientists can detect when this will happen in advance.Oddly enough, there are some researchers who are often close to the edge of new discoveries but stubbornly leave their original research line and start to study completely new problems.Generally the reason seems to be that they thought their original line of research had come to an end because they could not ask the right meaningful questions. This is yet another evidence of how important it is to ask meaningful questions. It is not uncommon to find different scientists coming to completely different, and sometimes diametrically opposed, conclusions about the same facts. What's going on?It is clear that such differences are due to differences in the ideologies ("worldviews") of the scientists involved.Two scientists in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, would agree completely on the fact that insects are very ingeniously adapted to nectar-gathering flowers and that flowers depend on insects for pollination.While natural theologians see this fact as an excellent proof of the wisdom of the Creator, Darwinists see it as the force of natural selection.Whether a scientist believes in essentialism or population thinking, whether he adheres to reductionism or emergenceism, whether he can clearly distinguish immediate causes from ultimate causes, all these fundamental differences in thought system will determine which biological theory he accepts.Thus, the changes and replacements of individual scientific doctrines affect scientists far less than the rise and fall of major ideologies in the history of science. It is very difficult to study the fundamental philosophical views or systems of thought held by scientists because they are seldom articulated.Most of them consist of acquiescences which are taken for granted and need not be uttered.Biological historians often encounter great difficulty when they try to ascertain such tacit understandings; and they encounter insurmountable resistance when they try to explore these "eternal truths" directly.In biology, the belief in the inheritance of acquired traits, the belief in irresistible progress and natural steps, the recognition of fundamental differences between the inanimate and the living world, the recognition of the essentialistic structure of the phenomenal world, etc., have been but such influences for centuries A few examples of the default of scientific development.All the famous debates in the history of biology have involved differences in basic ideologies, such as quantity versus quality, reductionism versus emergenceism, essentialism versus population thinking, monism versus dualism, discontinuity versus continuity, mechanism versus vitalism, mechanism Theory and Teleology, Statism and Evolution, and some other issues discussed in Chapter 2.Lyell opposed evolution not only because of his natural theology, but also because he believed in essentialism.Essentialism does not allow species to vary "beyond the limits of their type (pattern)". Coleman (1970) has pointed out that Bateson's opposition to the chromosome theory of inheritance is largely based on ideological reasons.It can be said that scientists object to a new theory almost exclusively for ideological reasons rather than for logical reasons or the evidence on which the objection is based.Barber (1961) has made a detailed analysis of the reasons for opposing the new view. A careful study of the thoughts of any revolutionary scientist will almost invariably reveal contradictory elements in them.Perhaps the most striking is the case of Lamarck.At the age of 55, he made a sharp transition from a belief in a world that never changes to a world that is constantly evolving.He superimposed his newer views on the traditional ideas of the eighteenth century, so many of his apparent contradictions were both inevitable and understandable. In analyzing the thinking of scholars of the past era, we must try our best to avoid judging the inconsistencies in their thinking with modern viewpoints or understandings.Perhaps no scientist escapes the inherent contradictions in his conceptual structure.Lyell advocated uniformitarianism, but even his contemporaries were surprised how close he came to explaining the origin of new species to anisotropism.Darwin used population thinking in explaining the phenomenon of adaptation by natural selection, yet used surprisingly typological language in discussing speciation.No Darwinist emphasized natural selection as much as Wallace did, yet he could not apply it to humans.Darwin and many pre-1900 geneticists often emphasized the integrity of genetic particles (demonstrated by back mutations and other phenomena), yet they all agreed on some degree of fusion of the same particles. It seems to me that historians of science have not paid enough attention to this contradiction and conceptual incompatibility.The mind of a scientist is often presented as an all-encompassing harmonious system, but in fact it is usually composed of many fragments which are constantly being revised, but which are no longer in harmony with other fragments.It would be interesting and interesting to study such contradictions in the minds of eminent biologists. Important scientific discoveries are often largely or completely ignored by their contemporaries.There are many examples of this cited in the literature, probably the most famous of which are Mendel's laws, published in 1866 and ignored until 1900.Avery's argument that the transforming factor of pneumococcus is a nucleic acid is another oft-cited example.This discovery was published in 1944, yet this important discovery did not receive even the slightest due attention until 1953.My own discovery of the Peripherally Isolated Population, which is important for speciation and macroevolution, was published in 1954, and was hardly mentioned before the 1970s, but it is very fashionable now. It is cited more often in this recently published textbook on macroevolution (Stanley, 1979) than any other paleontologist's work. It has been argued that this phenomenon arose because the findings were "premature." Stent's (1972) definition is, "A discovery is premature if its implications cannot be connected by a series of simple logical steps to generally accepted knowledge." Indeed, it seems doubtful to call a discovery premature If the discoverer of the discovery had thought it through to seek some kind of solution, as was the case with Mendel.My own analysis of the situation (without going into all the details) is that a discovery is likely to have been overlooked if it had been made in an area that was not fashionable at the time, that is, was in the main research at that time outside of interest.In the case of Mendel, most hybrid breeders at that time were keen to explore "species matter", and the analysis of individual traits was outside their problems.The embryologists who speculated a great deal on genetic problems at that time were concerned only (or at least primarily concerned) with the developmental aspects of hereditary phenomena.From their point of view, separation phenomena and ratios are irrelevant to the problems they study. Now for the second example - Avery's discovery.My own experience leads me to think that many geneticists are fully aware of its significance or at least hear its overtones, and it is through this that Watson understands the importance of this issue.However, analysis of the molecular structure of DNA (that is, its suitability as a molecule for receiving and transmitting information) was beyond the reach of these biologists.This had to be done by chemists, and indeed by Chaghav et al.There is no precociousness in this case, except in the sense that most chemists and molecular physicists working on DNA at the time did not understand the importance of this molecule as biologists did.Finally, as a third example, the importance of marginally isolated populations has been completely ignored by almost all geneticists because it is not within the scope of their research. Only when the typical marginally isolated populations of Drosophila were found in the Hawaiian It was only later that the geneticist Carson set out to study the question.Paleontologists also ignore marginally isolated species because before 1972 they actually anchored themselves within "vertical" thinking.S. S., one of the two paleontologists who applied the concept of marginally isolated populations (species) to paleontology. J． It was no coincidence that Gould contacted me while teaching an advanced course in evolutionary biology in previous years. My takeaway from the discussion above is that precocious probably isn't the most accurate word for this type of phenomenon. Such phenomena are simply the result of the lack of connections between scholars in different fields of study and the inability of most of them to connect findings in neighboring fields with the problems they themselves study.Most scientists are indeed concerned only with research that is relevant to their work and that is within the reach of their technology and equipment. It has often been mentioned in the past that Mendel's research report would not have been buried for 34 years if it had been published in a more prestigious botanical journal rather than in the proceedings of a local naturalist society.The particular channel through which a scientific discovery or new theory is published is indeed quite important and should be emphasized more than in the past.Kessel and Weinberg published their discovery (now called the Hardy-Weinberg law) in a relatively obscure journal and thus their priority was long ignored, while Hardy published his research in the famous " It was quickly recognized in the journal Science. From my own work, I also realize that where the paper is published is very important. In the early 1930s it was generally believed that sexual dimorphism in feather color in birds was the result of estrogen suppressing the formation of neutral (male) feathers in female birds. In 1933 I found several birds in the Indo-Australian Islands with marked geographical variation and a certain degree of sexual dimorphism.The scarlet robin (Petroica muhicolor) on some islands has standard sexual dimorphism identical to this bird of Australian origin.However, on other islands, the male bird has the feather color of the female bird, so both the male bird and the female bird have the protective color (covert color) of the female bird, while the female birds on other islands have the male bird feathers, regardless of whether the female bird or the female bird Both males have the normal vivid black, white, and red colors of mature males.Since geographical variation in the sex hormones of this bird is unlikely, I conclude that the sexual dimorphism is directly controlled by the potential of feather germs.I published this discovery (for the first time as a young man) in the American Museum Journal (1933; 1934), which of course was not read by endocrinologists or developmental physiologists, and was thus recognized by them. Completely ignored. By the middle of the nineteenth century biologists' papers could be published almost exclusively in the publications of universities or colleges and the journals of certain scientific societies and naturalist societies, most of which were distributed by exchange.Except for the publications of the Paris Academy of Sciences, the Linnean Society of London, and the Zoological Society of London, the journals of most societies are rarely read, at least internationally.This situation improved with the gradual increase of specialized journals. Once these specialized journals were available, many specialized branches of biology sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Experience shows that publishing books is crucial to a scientist's prestige, at least in the past.In early editions of Who's Who in Science in America, the most famous scientists were starred, and it is generally known to star a scientist once they have published work.However, publishing works also has its disadvantages.I don't know why, but it is generally believed that books summarize the academic status of a certain field or the progress of a certain issue.If a scholar puts forward innovative ideas in the book and summarizes the literature in other parts, the new ideas are likely to be missed when reading.Therefore, young scholars must be reminded to publish novel ideas in journals alone, so that the danger of being obliterated will be greatly reduced. There is another point worth noting.It is not a good idea to publish together material of a very different nature.The title of such a work in most cases can only indicate one aspect of the topic, other aspects may be ignored.This has often been the case in the taxonomic literature in the past.If new ideas on the concept of species, speciation, or biogeography were published in a taxonomic monograph entitled "Revised studies of the XX family of beetles (or fishes)," no one would pay attention to the inaccuracies of these papers. Pertinent new perspectives.Now almost all sub-disciplines in biology have their own professional journals, and it is easier for the author to submit his papers to the most suitable journals for his peers to read. 20.2 Maturity of Doctrine and Concepts The backbone of science is the system of generalizations, theories, and concepts that provide an explanatory framework for observed phenomena.The main task of the philosophy of science is to study how theories (theories) are formed and tested; how hypotheses, laws, and theories differ from each other; what is the difference between the logic of discovery and the logic of explanation; and all interrelated How to deal with the problem and so on.I do not intend to reopen these matters but only to introduce some special factors which have played a role (whether favorable or not) in the development of scientific doctrines and concepts. A new perspective is seldom perfectly sound when it begins to emerge.After Darwin mentioned the concept of natural selection for the first time in the autumn of 1838, he continued to enrich and perfect it gradually.In fact, when you read a scholar's first formulation of an idea or concept, you will find how vague it is, and sometimes it will contain some irrelevant, even contradictory parts. Concepts and doctrines are generally part of the research tradition of a particular branch of science, and the study of factors that facilitate (or hinder) the growth (maturation) of a discipline is in some ways more illuminating than the study of the maturation of a particular concept . Some of these factors are described below (these factors are not listed in order of importance). (1) Eliminate useless theories or concepts The maturity and establishment of the theory of natural selection mainly depend on negating all competing theories one by one, such as the theory of catastrophe, orthogenesis, and the theory of acquired trait inheritance.Another example is the maturation of modern genetics.About a dozen previously held concepts from ancient Greece to 1900 had to be rejected in order to give way to the modern concept of genetics of transmission (see Chapter 16). (2) Eliminate inconsistencies and contradictions Inconsistencies and internal contradictions are often not obvious when the theory is not yet mature.When a thinker assents to apparently distinct concepts at the same time, he acts as if the different concepts were in different ventricles of the brain with no channels of communication with each other.For example, people who believed in soft inheritance in the 18th and 19th centuries were essentialists, and they should have believed in immutable essences.Another example is the early Mendelians who attributed evolutionary change to chance mutations, ignoring that such random processes would never lead to highly unusual adaptations in the biological world.Some early evolutionists, such as Asa Gray, revered a personal God while acknowledging natural selection and other aspects of Darwinism that his contemporaries considered incompatible with creationism A dilemma arises whenever a scientific fact or doctrine conflicts with a scientist's basic philosophical viewpoint or system of thought.It is generally easier to live with contradictions in such situations than to abandon science or one's own ideology.But if the contradiction affects only the competing theories, only one of the two will in the end be justified, and the result will be a marked advance in science. (3) Investment in other fields Many important advances in the maturation of concepts and doctrines are the result of ideas or techniques imported from other fields.These ten inputs (inputs) may come from other branches of biology, such as genetics from animals, plant breeding, cytology, systematics, or from the physical sciences (especially chemistry) or mathematics.Well-established theories and models in one science are often applicable when transplanted into another scientific field, and sometimes produce the most valuable results. (4) Eliminate semantic confusion Terminology (technical terms), when well defined and easily understood, are extremely beneficial to scientific progress.Conversely, when a term is mistakenly transplanted to a different concept (as Morgan cites the term mutation), or when the same term is used for different concepts, considerable confusion is created until clarification is made.Citing new terms often helps clarify this type of confusion.Examples include "taxon" (the word "taxonomic level" has been used before), "subspecies" (taxonomists have used the word "variety" in the past, and variety has also been used for individual variants), and "isolation". mechanism" (previously there was no such term).In addition, the various branches of biology can cite many examples where the introduction of new terms can change the seemingly chaotic situation. The introduction of new terminology in the 1930s and 1940s greatly facilitated evolutionary synthesis.For example "polytypic" cited by Huxley and Meyer, "sympatric" and "exotic" introduced by Meyer, "gene pool" cited by the Russian School, "genetic drift" cited by Sewall Wright, and other terms like "Founder's Principle" and "Genetic Homeostasis".Controversy can be helped when these terms are clearly defined and clearly distinguished from other phenomena with which they were previously confused. Misunderstandings inevitably arise when a term is transferred from one concept to another no matter how much the underlying conceptualization process changes.In most cases, however, it is preferable to retain the term rather than constantly refer to new terms, as long as there are only minor or gradual changes in the conceptual basis.The term "gene," for example, when Johnson coined it, refers specifically to an "immaterial" entity, a "unit of account."In the Morgan school, this term is immediately applied to a specific and definite physical locus (site) on a chromosome, and in molecular genetics it is a set of base pairs, which are also real physical entities.Examples of this type abound. Metaphors play an important role in the history of science.There are accurate metaphors and inappropriate ones.Darwin's term "natural selection" fell right between these two metaphors and was firmly opposed by his contemporaries.They want to anthropomorphize "who" chooses and insist that there is no real difference between being chosen by nature and being created by God.Things got worse when Darwin, at the urging of his friends, adopted the phrase "survival of the fittest" because the new metaphor represented a circular argument ("Who" is the fittest? Survival is the fittest; "Who" survives? Survival of the fittest).The term "genetic drift" cited by Wright refers to the random process of variation in allele frequencies in small populations, which some scholars have misinterpreted as steady unidirectional drift.A study of metaphorical references in biology and their consequences will be an interesting subject for historians.