IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001210306

The Dubois Syndrome (2012)

Caspari, Rachel (Author)
Wolpoff, Milford H. (Author)

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 34
Pages: 33--42

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on the history, philosophy, and social studies of paleoanthropology.
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Methodology of science; scientific method Fossils Philosophy of science Paleontology Human evolution 19th century 20th century, early Dubois, Eugène

The modern scientific method relies on falsification of large, overarching explanatory hypotheses, but refutation at any level is not easily accepted, nor should it necessarily be. Here we discuss the Dubois Syndrome, based on the history of Eugène Dubois, famous for the discovery and interpretation of Pithecanthropus erectus. Widely viewed as unbalanced for his changing understanding of these important fossils, we discuss how his apparent capriciousness was actually a rational conclusion based on his adherence to a broad evolutionary theory. Examples of the Dubois syndrome are common, perhaps especially so in paleoanthropology because the database, even many years later, is small.

...More

Description Focuses on the methodological implications of Eugène Dubois's changing interpretations of Pithecanthropus erectus.

Included in

Article Delisle, Richard G. (2012) Human Evolution: An Agenda for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 3). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001210306/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Aczel, Amir D.; (2007)
Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution and the Search for Peking Man (/isis/citation/CBB000830479/)

Article R. Bruce Mcmillan; (2022)
Albert C. Koch’s Missourium and the Debate over the Contemporaneity of Humans and the Pleistocene Megafauna of North America (/isis/citation/CBB483731737/)

Article Claudine Cohen; (2017)
“How nationality influences Opinion”: Darwinism and palaeontology in France (1859–1914) (/isis/citation/CBB709081900/)

Article Anderson, Gemma; (2014)
Endangered: A Study of Morphological Drawing in Zoological Taxonomy (/isis/citation/CBB001201296/)

Thesis Marlena Briane Cameron; (2017)
Fossil Excavation, Museums, and Wyoming: American Paleontology, 1870-1915 (/isis/citation/CBB144188127/)

Article Chris Manias; (2017)
Progress in life's history: Linking Darwinism and palaeontology in Britain, 1860–1914 (/isis/citation/CBB426710736/)

Article Laura Colli; Antonella Salvini; Elena Pecchioni; Sandra Cencetti; (2017)
Conservation of Paleontological Finds: the Restoration Materials of the “Problematica Verrucana” (/isis/citation/CBB575061092/)

Article Edward P.F. Rose; (2021)
British military contributions to the geology of Malta, Part 1: Nineteenth century (/isis/citation/CBB294782668/)

Article Marco Tamborini; (2015)
Paleontology and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: The Subversive Role of Statistics at the End of the 19th Century (/isis/citation/CBB570146507/)

Chapter Howell, Alan C.; (2005)
James Lomax (1857--1934): Palaeobotanical Catalyst or Hindrance? (/isis/citation/CBB000774538/)

Book Richard Fallon; (2021)
Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature: How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon (/isis/citation/CBB569188287/)

Article R. Bruce McMillan; (2016)
C. W. Beehler's Collection of Vertebrate Fossils: A Lost Legacy (/isis/citation/CBB008066555/)

Article Ali Mehmet Celâl Şengör; (2021)
Eduard Suess and palaeontology: His illustrations (/isis/citation/CBB299641816/)

Chapter Wilding, Richard; (2005)
D. H. Scott and A. C. Seward: Modem Pioneers in the Structure and Architecture of Fossil Plants (/isis/citation/CBB000774539/)

Book Beard, K. Christopher; (2004)
The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (/isis/citation/CBB000630260/)

Thesis Booth, Kelvin Jay; (2007)
Animal Mind, Human Mind: George H. Mead, Animality and the Evolution of Embodied Cognition (/isis/citation/CBB001561432/)

Article Martin Herrnstadt; Léa Renard; (2020)
L’Enquête, entre science de l’État et thérapie sociale (/isis/citation/CBB493274710/)

Article Caitlin Donahue Wylie; (2019)
The Plurality of Assumptions About Fossils and Time (/isis/citation/CBB797967022/)

Article J. M. Jordan; (2016)
`Ancient Episteme' and the Nature of Fossils: A Correction of a Modern Scholarly Error (/isis/citation/CBB004207475/)

Article Paige Madison; (2019)
All Things Bleak and Bare Beneath a Brazen Sky: Practice and Place in the Analysis of Australopithecus (/isis/citation/CBB654252561/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}