This paper has three principal aims: first, through a detailed analysis of the hypotheses and assumptions underlying Weismann's and Morgan's disagreement on the nature of animal regeneration, it seeks to readdress the imbalance in coverage of their discussion, providing, at the same time, a fascinating case-study for those interested in general issues related to controversies in science. Second, contrary to Morgan's beliefs according to which Weismann employed a speculative and unempirical method of scientific investigation, the article shows that Weismann performed experiments, made observations and proposed 'undogmatic' theories open to refutation. Third, through the reconstruction of Weismann's and Morgan's disagreement, this study illustrates how biology, during the very late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was undergoing important changes. I argue that this controversy clearly and convincingly demonstrates how some important epistemic assumptions became increasingly problematic for some members of the younger generations of biologists. At the end of my discussion I will also argue that Weismann and Morgan both had strong well-grounded arguments supporting their conclusions; for this reason I suggest a few factors ("taken-for-granted" beliefs or assumptions) that could explain why their disagreement was doomed to remain unresolved. In particular, I will analyze their diverse explicative interests, their different theoretical concerns and their distinct use of the available evidence.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
...More
Article
deJong-Lambert, William;
Krementsov, Nikolai;
(2012)
On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001250824/)
Article
Sunderland, Mary Evelyn;
(2010)
Regeneration: Thomas Hunt Morgan's Window into Development
(/isis/citation/CBB001022368/)
Chapter
Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira;
(2010)
Regeneration as a Difficulty for the Theory of Natural Selection: Morgan's Changing Attitudes, 1897--1932
(/isis/citation/CBB001250587/)
Article
Giulia Frezza;
Mauro Capocci;
(2018)
Thomas Hunt Morgan and the Invisible Gene: The Right Tool for the Job
(/isis/citation/CBB951679295/)
Article
Zottoli, Steven J.;
Seyfarth, Ernst-August;
(2015)
The Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole) and the Scientific Advancement of Women in the Early 20th Century: The Example of Mary Jane Hogue (1883--1962)
(/isis/citation/CBB001422102/)
Article
Kingsland, Sharon E.;
(2007)
Maintaining Continuity through a Scientific Revolution: A Rereading of E. B. Wilson and T. H. Morgan on Sex Determination and Mendelism
(/isis/citation/CBB000773116/)
Book
Strick, James E.;
(2015)
Wilhelm Reich, Biologist
(/isis/citation/CBB001510003/)
Chapter
Milam, Erika Lorraine;
(2009)
“The Experimental Animal from the Naturalist's Point of View”: Behavior and Evolution at the American Museum of Natural History, 1928--1954
(/isis/citation/CBB001022524/)
Article
Gall, Yasha M.;
Konashev, Mikhail B.;
(2001)
The Discovery of Gramicidin S: The Intellectual Transformation of G. F. Gause from Biologist to Researcher of Antibiotics and on Its Meaning for the Fate of Russian Genetics
(/isis/citation/CBB000770067/)
Thesis
Cosans, Christopher Ernest;
(1993)
The Beginnings of Experimental Biology: Scientific Realism and Anatomy
(/isis/citation/CBB001562720/)
Book
Churchill, F. B.;
(2015)
August Weismann: Development, Heredity, and Evolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001551937/)
Article
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg;
(2008)
Heredity and Its Entities around 1900
(/isis/citation/CBB000931145/)
Article
Vorms, Marion;
(2014)
The Birth of Classical Genetics as the Junction of Two Disciplines: Conceptual Change as Representational Change
(/isis/citation/CBB001451842/)
Chapter
Schwartz, Astrid;
(2009)
Baron Jakob von Euxküll: Das Experiment als Ordnungsprinzip in der Biologie
(/isis/citation/CBB001023716/)
Article
Pereira Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr;
(2012)
Um representante do estilo de pensamento científico “compreensivo,” William Bateson (1861--1926): ciência, política e arte
(/isis/citation/CBB001212025/)
Article
Erlingsson, Steindór J.;
(2013)
Institutions and Innovation: Experimental Zoology and the Creation of the British Journal of Experimental Biology and the Society for Experimental Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB001252458/)
Chapter
Martins, Lilian A.-C. P.;
(2002)
Um achado inusitado no laboratório de Morgan: a Drosophila de olhos brancos
(/isis/citation/CBB000750288/)
Article
David Ceccarelli;
(2021)
“The bad habit of wandering”: Morgan, Osborn and the issue of evolutionary causality in genetics and paleontology
(/isis/citation/CBB874691467/)
Chapter
Wilkins, Adam;
(2011)
Why Did the Modern Synthesis Give Short Shrift to “Soft Inheritance”?
(/isis/citation/CBB001500092/)
Thesis
Epting, Susan;
(2012)
Casualties of the Spirit: The Development of Military Psychology and Psychiatry in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 1914--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001562791/)
Be the first to comment!