Marion Clara Vorms

In this paper, I wish to challenge theory-biased approaches to scientific knowledge, by arguing for a study of theorizing, as a cognitive activity, rather than of theories, as abstract structures independent from the agents’ understanding of them. Such a study implies taking into account scientists’ reasoning processes, and their representational practices. Here, I analyze the representational practices of geneticists in the 1910s, as a means of shedding light on the content of classical genetics. Most philosophical accounts of classical genetics fail to distinguish between the purely genetic, or Mendelian level, and the cytological one. I distinguish between them by characterizing them in terms of their respective associated representational practices. I then present how the two levels were articulated within Morgan’s theory of crossing-over, and I describe the representational technique of linkage mapping, which embodies the “merging” of the Mendelian and cytological levels. I propose an analysis of the mapping scheme, as a means of enlightening the conceptual articulation of Mendelian and cytological hypotheses within classical genetics. Finally, I present the respective views of three opponents to Morgan in the 1910s, who had a different understanding of the articulation of cytology and Mendelism, and entertained different views concerning the role and proper interpretation of maps. I propose to consider these diverging perspectives as instantiating what I call different “versions” of classical genetics

The book edited by Roman Frigg and Matthew C. Hunter is a great example of interdisciplinary collaborative work, bringing together contributions by scholars of science and of art, around the topic of representation. The collection consists of eleven essays, seven of which were presented in early form at a conference organized by the two editors at the London School of Economics and the Courtauld Institute of Art in June 2006; the other four have been added subsequently. The result is a high-standard, remarkably edited book

In this paper, I propose a study of the invention and development of the technique of genetic mapping in the 1920's. I show that what is usually taken as one and the same theory (Classical Genetics) is in fact the result of the articulation of various levels of explanations corresponding to two different disciplines, with different methods and representational practices -- namely Mendelian theory and cytology. The merging of these two disciplinary frameworks is embodied in the very rules underlying the construction and interpretation of genetic maps. Moreover, the debates between the geneticists around how to display data within these maps reveal that they have different understanding of the articulation of these disciplines (and different theoretical commitments)