Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-06T21:13:45.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining Scientific Change: Integrating the Cognitive and the Social

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Paul Thagard
Paul Thagard*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1979, Dr. J. Robin Warren of the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia discovered bacteria in the biopsies of stomach tissue taken from patients with digestive complaints. His colleague Dr. Barry Marshall followed up on Warren's work and found the bacteria in many patients with stomach inflammation and peptic ulcers (Marshall and Warren 1984). When Marshall claimed at a medical conference that bacteria are the principal cause of peptic ulcers, his remarks were rejected as preposterous. It was widely believed that the human stomach's caustic gastric juices made it too antiseptic for bacteria to survive for long. Moreover, alternative explanations of the principal cause of ulcers were available, focusing on excess acidity and emotional stress. Stung by rejection of his theory and failure of animal experiments, Marshall resorted in 1984 to drinking the bacteria himself, and underwent endoscopy and biopsy to show that his stomach had indeed become inflamed (Monmaney 1993).

Type
Part IX. Integrating Cognitive and Social Models of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 298 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Graham, D.Y., & Go, M.F. (1993), “Helicobacter Pylori: Current Status” Gastroenterology, 105: 279–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kosslyn, S., & Koenig, O. (1992), Wet mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, B J., and Warren, J.R. (1984), “Unidentified Curved Bacilli in the Stomach of Patients with Gastritis and Peptic Ulceration”, Lancet 8390: 1311–1315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monmaney, T. (1993), “Marshall's Hunch”, New Yorker, September 20, 64-72.Google Scholar
Murray, P.R., Kobayaki, G.S., Pfaller, M.A., and Rosenthal, K.S. (1994), Medical Microbiology (2nd ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.Google Scholar
Posner, M.I., and Raichle, M.E. (1994), Images of Mind. New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Thagard, P. (1988), Computational Philosophy of Science. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1992), Conceptual Revolutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1994), “Mind, Society, and the Growth of Knowledge”, Philosophy of Science 61: 629–645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamada, T., et al. (1994), Helicobacter Pylori in Peptic Ulcer Disease. Washington: National Institutes of Health.CrossRefGoogle Scholar