On the Possibility of Crucial Experiments in Biology

Tudor Baetu

doi:10.1093/bjps/axx013

On the Possibility of Crucial Experiments in Biology

Tudor Baetu

Department of Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

The paper analyzes in detail the Meselson-Stahl experiment, identifying two novel difficulties for the crucial experiment account, namely the fragility of the experimental results and the fact that the hypotheses under scrutiny were not mutually exclusive. The crucial experiment account is rejected in favor of an experimental-mechanistic account of the historical significance of the experiment emphasising that the experiment generated data about the biochemistry of DNA replication independently of the testing of the semiconservative, conservative and dispersive hypotheses.

Original language	English
Article number	axx013
Number of pages	23
Journal	British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Early online date	1 Sept 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axx013
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 1 Sept 2017

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On the Possibility of Crucial Experiments in Biology

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