Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development

Thomas Kuhn’s famous model of the components and dynamics of scientific revolutions is still dominant to this day across science, philosophy, and history. The guiding philosophical theme of this paper is that, concerning actual revolutions in neuroscience over the past sixty years, Kuhn’s account is...

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Main Author: John eBickle
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-03-01
Series:Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00024/full
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spelling doaj-f4ad4c8ccd2143b5a124e492a1f252c52020-11-24T22:56:07ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience1662-51372016-03-011010.3389/fnsys.2016.00024183300Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool DevelopmentJohn eBickle0John eBickle1Mississippi State UniversityUniversity of Mississippi Medical CenterThomas Kuhn’s famous model of the components and dynamics of scientific revolutions is still dominant to this day across science, philosophy, and history. The guiding philosophical theme of this paper is that, concerning actual revolutions in neuroscience over the past sixty years, Kuhn’s account is wrong. There have been revolutions, and new ones are brewing, but they do not turn on competing paradigms, anomalies, or the like. Instead, they turn exclusively on the development of new experimental tools. I adopt a metascientific approach and examine in detail the development of two recent neuroscience revolutions: the impact of engineered genetically mutated mammals in the search for causal mechanisms of higher cognitive functions; and the more recent impact of optogenetics (and DREADDs). The two key metascientific concepts I derive from these case studies are a revolutionary new tool’s motivating problem, and its initial and second-phase hook experiments. These concepts hardly exhaust a detailed metascience of Tool Development experiments in neuroscience, but they get that project off to a useful start and distinguish the subsequent account of neuroscience revolutions clearly from Kuhn’s famous model. I close with a brief remark about the general importance of molecular biology for a current philosophical understanding of science, as comparable to the place physics occupied when Kuhn formulated his famous theory of scientific revolutions.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00024/fullMetascienceThomas Kuhn’s model of scientific revolutionTool Development experimentsgene targeting techniquesoptogenetics (and DREADDs)motivating problem
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author John eBickle
John eBickle
spellingShingle John eBickle
John eBickle
Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
Metascience
Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific revolution
Tool Development experiments
gene targeting techniques
optogenetics (and DREADDs)
motivating problem
author_facet John eBickle
John eBickle
author_sort John eBickle
title Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
title_short Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
title_full Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
title_fullStr Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
title_full_unstemmed Revolutions in Neuroscience: Tool Development
title_sort revolutions in neuroscience: tool development
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
series Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience
issn 1662-5137
publishDate 2016-03-01
description Thomas Kuhn’s famous model of the components and dynamics of scientific revolutions is still dominant to this day across science, philosophy, and history. The guiding philosophical theme of this paper is that, concerning actual revolutions in neuroscience over the past sixty years, Kuhn’s account is wrong. There have been revolutions, and new ones are brewing, but they do not turn on competing paradigms, anomalies, or the like. Instead, they turn exclusively on the development of new experimental tools. I adopt a metascientific approach and examine in detail the development of two recent neuroscience revolutions: the impact of engineered genetically mutated mammals in the search for causal mechanisms of higher cognitive functions; and the more recent impact of optogenetics (and DREADDs). The two key metascientific concepts I derive from these case studies are a revolutionary new tool’s motivating problem, and its initial and second-phase hook experiments. These concepts hardly exhaust a detailed metascience of Tool Development experiments in neuroscience, but they get that project off to a useful start and distinguish the subsequent account of neuroscience revolutions clearly from Kuhn’s famous model. I close with a brief remark about the general importance of molecular biology for a current philosophical understanding of science, as comparable to the place physics occupied when Kuhn formulated his famous theory of scientific revolutions.
topic Metascience
Thomas Kuhn’s model of scientific revolution
Tool Development experiments
gene targeting techniques
optogenetics (and DREADDs)
motivating problem
url http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00024/full
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