Article ID: CBB000830438

In Search of the Best Explanation about the Nature of the Gene: Avery on Pneumococcal Transformation (2008)

unapi

In this paper I present a model of rational belief change, and I show how to use it to obtain a better insight into the debate about the nature of pneumococcal transformation, genes and DNA that took place in the forties, as a result of Oswald T. Avery's work. The model offers a particular elaboration of the concept of inference to the best explanation, along decision theoretic lines. Within this framework, I distinguish different senses in which Avery's team can be said to have proceeded with caution, thus throwing some light upon a persistent source of disagreement among researchers in the history of genetics. In addition, I explain why we are entitled to say that rival parties such as physicist Maclyn McCarty and biochemist Alfred Mirsky were epistemically rational, in spite of the fact that they reached different conclusions on the basis of the same evidence.

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Description Explores rational belief change in “the debate about the nature of pneumococcal transformation, genes and DNA that took place in the forties, as a result of Oswald T. Avery's work.” (from the abstract)


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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000830438/

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Authors & Contributors
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg
Deichmann, Ute
Fabrizio Rufo
Walsby, A. E.
Veigl, Sophie Juliane
Hall, Kersten T.
Concepts
Molecular biology
Genetics
DNA; RNA
Genes
Heredity
Evolution
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
19th century
21st century
Places
England
Belgium
Great Britain
Institutions
Ghent University
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
Institut Pasteur, Paris
Human Genome Project
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