The pages of the history of science record thousands of instances of similar discoveries having been made by scientists working independently of one another. Sometimes the discoveries are simultaneous or almost so; sometimes a scientist will make anew a discovery which, unknown to him, somebody else had made years before.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
I want to acknowledge the generous co-operation of the scientists in India and New Zealand whose work I discuss. It should not be supposed, however, that they necessarily agree with what I have to say. My research was supported by grants from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, and the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. I am grateful to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments.
2.
MertonR. K., “Multiple discoveries as strategic research site”, in StorerN. W. (ed.), The sociology of science (Chicago, 1973), 371–82, p. 371. This essay was originally published in 1963.
3.
Ibid., and MertonR. K., “Singletons and multiples in science”, in Storer (ed.), op. cit., 343–70 (this essay was originally published in 1961). An important earlier discussion is that of OgburnW. F. and ThomasD. S., “Are inventions inevitable?”, Political science quarterly, xxxvii (1922), 83–98.
4.
See ReichenbachH., Experience and prediction (Chicago, 1961). The best known philosopher to find a role for discovery was N. R. Hanson – see, for example, his Patterns of discovery (Cambridge, 1965). But, as McLaughlinR. M., “Invention and appraisal”, in McLaughlinR. M. (ed.), What? Where? When? Why? Essays on induction, space and time, explanation (Dordrecht, 1982), 69–100, shows, Hanson was wrong to pursue C. S. Peirce's idea of a ‘retroductive’ logic. McLaughlin himself defends a straight-forwardly inductive view of discovery. LaudanLarry, “Why was the logic of discovery abandoned?”, in NicklesT. (ed.), Scientific discovery, logic and rationality (Dordrecht, 1980), 173–83, is probably correct when he suggests that the unpopularity of induction lies behind much of the suspicion of logics of discovery. Certainly PopperK. R. trenchantly attacks the idea along these lines in his ironically titled Logic of scientific discovery (London, 1972).
5.
See StokesT. D., “The Side-By-Side model of DNA: Logic in a scientific invention” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne, 1983), esp. chs 6 and 7.
6.
Of course it is a problem for philosophy, though not one tackled here, to explain how a reason can be a cause. In opposition, the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge has a social accounting according to which reasons are mere epiphenomena. But, curiously, the so-called ‘Edinburgh School’ appear to expect their view to prevail by force of argument.
7.
SimontonD. K., “Multiple discovery and invention: Zeitgeist, genius or chance?”, Journal of personality and social psychology, xxxvii (1979), 1603–16.
8.
Merton, op. cit. (ref. 3), 356.
9.
A limiting form of the binomial distribution, where the number of trials (n) tends to infinity and the probability of success (p) tends to zero, such that np remains constant and finite. See de Solla PriceD. J., Big science, little science (New York, 1963), 65–66.
10.
SimontonD. K., “Independent discovery in science and technology: A closer look at the Poisson distribution”. Social studies of science, viii (1978), 521–32, p. 521.
11.
ibid., 530–1.
12.
Simonton, op. cit. (ref. 7), 1604.
13.
Merton, op. cit. (ref. 3), 370.
14.
Simonton, op. cit. (ref. 7), 1615.
15.
BranniganA. and WannerR. A., “Historical distributions of multiple discoveries and theories of scientific change”, Social studies of science, xiii (1983), 417–35.
16.
Simonton, op. cit. (ref. 10), 523.
17.
Merton, op. cit. (ref. 2), 376.
18.
Reichenbach, op. cit. (ref. 4), 6–7.
19.
ibid.
20.
McLaughlin, op. cit. (ref. 4). The literature on multiples generally employs the terms ‘discovery’ and ‘invention’ to distinguish scientific from technological innovations.
21.
BranniganA., The social basis of scientific discoveries (Cambridge, 1981), 77.
22.
ibid., 11, emphasis in the original.
23.
ibid., 43–45.
24.
PopperK. R., op. cit. (ref. 4), 31. Originally published in 1934 as Logik der Forschung. However, the German is better translated as ‘the logic of research’. The terms ‘inventionist’ and ‘anti-inventionist’ are McLaughlin's, op. cit. (ref. 4).
25.
Popper, ibid.
26.
RodleyG. A.ScobieR. S.BatesR. H. T. and LewittR. M., “A possible conformation for double-stranded polynucleotides”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), lxxiii (1976), 2959–63.
27.
SasisekharanV. and PattabiramanN., “Doubled stranded polynucleotides: Two typical alternative conformations for nucleic acids”, Current science, xlv (1976), 779–83.
28.
A detailed account may be found in Stokes, op. cit. (refs 5 and 30). The source of all otherwise unacknowledged material relating to the New Zealand and Indian work, including direct quotation, are the transcripts of interviews with the scientists concerned which were recorded by the author in Christchurch and Bangalore during November and December 1979.
29.
ArnottS., “Is DNA really a double helix?”, Nature, cclxxviii (1979), 780–1.
30.
See StokesT. D., “The double helix and the warped zipper – an exemplary tale”, Social studies of science, xxii (1982), 207–40.
31.
SpencerJ. H., The physics and chemistry of DNA and RNA (Philadelphia, 1972), 57.
32.
PortugalF. H. and CohenJ. S., A century of DNA (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 313.
33.
RodleyG. A. and ReanneyD. C., The double helix revisited (Christchurch, 1977), 49–50.
34.
CowleyJ. M. to RodleyG. A., 11 October 1978. The New Zealanders privately published the three papers concerned, together with the referees' reports and a rebuttal. See BatesR. H. T.McKinnonG. C. and MillaneR. P., A new look at B-DNA diffraction data (Electrical Engineering Department, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, 1978). The substance of the papers eventually appeared as BatesR. H. T.McKinnonG. C.MillaneR. P. and RodleyG. A., “Revised interpretations of the available X-ray data for B-DNA”, Prâmana, xiv (1980), 233–52.
35.
Several different social explanations might be offered – each a satisfactory account of a specific invention – but then the multiplicity itself would remain unexplained.
36.
Merton, op. cit. (ref. 3), 367.
37.
It is noteworthy that social determinist explanations of multiples are, at bottom, suggesting that they are, in one sense, not independent; rather they are connected via the Zeitgeist. This is clearest in the work of Brannigan and Wanner, op. cit. (ref. 15).
38.
A Watson-Crick model of closed, circular DNA is essentially similar to a two-stranded, hemp quoit. Consequently, it was very difficult to see how single-strand loops could form without a strand being severed. A detailed account of the New Zealand work may be found in Stokes, op. cit. (ref. 5), chs 1 and 10, and a short account in Stokes, op. cit. (ref. 30), 222–3.
39.
See KuhnT. S., The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd edn (Chicago, 1970), chs 6 and 7; LakatosI., “Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes”, in LakatosI. and MusgraveA. (eds), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (Cambridge, 1970), 91–196. For detailed analysis, see Stokes, op. cit. (ref. 5), ch. 8.
40.
WatsonJ. D. and CrickF. H. C., “The structure of DNA”, Cold Spring Harbour symposia on quantitative biology, xviii (1953), 964–7; CyriaxB. and GathR., “The conformation of double-stranded DNA”, Naturwissenschaften, lxv (1978), 106–8.
41.
CrickF. H. C.WangJ. C. and BauerW. R., “Is DNA really a double helix?”, Journal of molecular biology, cxxix (1979), 449–61, p. 456.
42.
ArnottS. to RodleyG. A., 15 May 1979.
43.
MitsuiY.LangridgeR.ShottleB. E.CantorC. R.GrantR. C.KodamaM. and WellsR. D., “Physical and enzymatic studies of poly d(I-C): Poly d(I-C) – an unusual double-helical DNA”, Nature, ccxxviii (1970), 1166–9.
44.
For a detailed account of the Indian work see Stokes, op. cit. (ref. 5), chs 2 and 11, and StokesT. D., “Methodology as a normative conceptual problem”, forthcoming in SchusterJ. and YeoR. (eds), The politics and rhetoric of scientific method: Historical studies (Dordrecht, 1986).
45.
See Stokes, op. cit. (ref. 5), ch. 3.
46.
MillaneR. P. and RodleyG. A., “Stereochemical details of the Side-By-Side model of DNA”, Nucleic acids research, ix (1981), 1765–73.
