Beyond Theory-Centric Studies of Scientific Progress: Repertoires in Biology

Rachel Ankeny (University of Adelaide), Sabina Leonelli (University of Exeter) - It is widely acknowledged that models come in an endless variety of forms, a combination of which is always required by their use in scientific practice. Given this dramatic diversity, much attention has been paid to the actual features of models employed in scientific practice in order to clarify the epistemological status of each type of model as both a product of and a tool used for scientific theorizing (e.g., Weisberg 2013; Levy and Currie 2015; Frigg and Nguyen 2016). Relatively less attention has been devoted to the variety of activities, such as extrapolation, that need to be performed to yield models that can be defined as ‘good’ or ‘adequate’ (cf. Steel 2008; Knuuttila 2011; Baetu 2016). Examining modelling activities, rather than their products, is a particularly useful approach when trying to understand how experimental organisms help to create knowledge that can be projected beyond the immediate domain in which it was produced, and particularly what makes such projections more (or less) plausible. This question is especially significant given that organisms often are taken as models for phenomena that are arguably not directly observable in the organisms themselves (e.g., the use of mice to explore alcoholism in humans) or for organisms that are very dissimilar to them (e.g., the use of yeast as models for cancer in humans). In this paper, we argue that the plausibility of organisms as models relates to the ways in which they fit (or fail to fit) a given research repertoire, which in turn defines the expectations and constraints of the research community in question. We thus provide a philosophical framework to understand the epistemic grounds on which researchers endow models with representational power, the extent to which such endowment is viewed as fruitful and plausible–or problematic and unrealistic–by others, and the implications of such assessments for what is perceived as ‘successful’ research practice. This analysis also illustrates one way in which adopting the framework of repertoires can help address long-standing questions within the philosophy of science.

Michael Dietrich (University of Pittsburgh), Nathan Crowe (University of North Carolina) - Understanding scientific change in terms of the components of repertoires (Ankeny & Leonelli 2016) can shed important insight into how science is conducted, organized, and communicated. Following Silvia Culp and Philip Kitcher’s approach (1989) to piecemeal scientific change, in this paper, we will articulate repertoires in terms of their components and argue that we should expect the continuity or change of a repertoire as a whole to be rare in science. While repertoires are ubiquitous in science, as an extended set of components repertoires change over time in a piecemeal fashion, as their individual components vary. Moreover, we argue that the continuity of the same components of a repertoire is not necessary for successful scientific practice, research community stability, or field identity (cf. Leonelli & Ankeny 2015). We will illustrate the process of piecemeal change in repertoires by following a network of embryologists who originated and extended Organizer research from 1921 to 1951. In 1921, Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold used microsurgical transplantation experiments on amphibian embryos to discover the Organizer, a region that seemed to control and coordinate important features of embryogenesis (Fässler 1997). Spemann developed a ‘school’ of researchers who trained with him, but after his retirement this ‘school’ became more of an internationally distributed network of researchers in England, Japan, South Africa, the United States, China, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, and Uruguay (Nakamura & Toivonen 1978). As the network grew over time, the number of different repertoires used in the network diversified in a piecemeal fashion, especially as its members developed research programs in different institutions and nations. The value of repertoires for this case study and others lies in drawing our attention to some components of scientific change that are rarely considered, such as means of communication, community formation, and material distribution. In doing so, it offers an important expansion of our understanding of piecemeal scientific change.