Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

From the nineteen sixties onwards a branch of philosophy of science has come to development, called history-oriented philosophy of science. This development constitutes a reaction on the then prevailing logical empiricist conception of scientific knowledge. The latter was increasingly seen as suffering from insurmountable internal problems, like e. g. the problems with the particular "observational-theoretical distinction" on which it drew. In addition the logical empiricists' general approach was increasingly criticized for two external shortcomings. Firstly, the examples of scientific knowledge that the logical empiricists were focusing on were con­ sidered as too simplistic to be informative on the nature of real life science. Secondly, it was felt that the attention of these philosophers of science was restricted to the static aspects of scientific knowledge, while neglecting its developmental aspects. History-oriented philosophy of science has taken up the challenge implicit in the latter two criticisms, i. e. to develop accounts of science that would be more adequate for understanding the development 1 of real life science. One of the more successful products of this branch of philosophy of science is Lakatos's theory of scientific development, sometimes called the "methodology of scientific research programmes". This theory conceives science as consisting of so called research program­ mes developing in time, and competing with each other over the issue which one generates the best explan~tions of the phenomena that they address.

I. Research Programmes and Criteria for Cognitive Success: Some Views from Recent Philosophy of Science.- 1. Popper’s view on scientific progress.- A. Popper’s three requirements for a successful theory transition.- B. The epistemological adequacy of Popper’s requirements.- 1. Verisimilitude.- 2. Prospects of support from verisimilitude considerations.- C. The descriptive adequacy of Popper’s requirements.- D. Conclusion.- 2. What counts as a proper prediction?.- 3. Lakatos’s view on scientific development: research programmes.- 4. Criteria for a successful research programme.- A. Popper’s requirements translated into the research programmes terminology.- 1. Translation of the second and third requirement.- 2. Impact of Popper’s first requirement upon the translations obtained.- B. A scale of criteria for successful research programmes.- C. Mapping various criteria proposed in the literature into our scale.- 1. Lakatos.- 2. Zahar.- 3. Worrall.- 4. Musgrave.- 5. Laudan.- 6. Kuhn.- D. Who is right?.- 5. Guide to the next chapters.- II. The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Experiment: The Birth of a New Research Programme.- 1. The prehistory of the nmr experiment.- 2. The nmr experiment and its underlying theory.- A. Experimental setup and theory of the nmr experiment.- B. The intended use of the nmr experiment.- C. Comparison with the mbmr experiment.- 3. Global significance of the nmr experiment: the birth of a new research programme.- 4. Local significance of the first nmr experiments: disconfirming the prevailing theory of the nmr phenomenon.- A. The 1945 theory of the nmr phenomenon and its performance.- 1. Spin-lattice relaxation time.- 2. Resonance line width.- B. Concluding remarks.- 5. Gorter’s bad luck, or why he did not win a Nobel prize.- A. Gorter’s first attempt to detect the nmr phenomenon.- B. Conclusions.- C. Gorter’s advice to Rabi.- D. Gorter’s second attempt to detect the nmr phenomenon.- III. Lakatos’s Theory and the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Conceptual Adequacy of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The descriptive claims connected with Lakatos’s theory of scientific development.- A. Preliminaries and definitions.- B. Descriptive claims.- 2. The nmr programme and the conceptual adequacy of Lakatos’s theory.- A. The development of the nmr programme: preliminary sketch.- B. Characterization of the nmr programme in Lakatosian terms.- 3. A first modification of Lakatos’s theory.- A. Disconfirming claim 2.- B. Repair of claim 2.- C. Impact on the rest of Lakatos’s theory.- IV. The Development of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Explanatory Failure of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The BPP theory of nuclear magnetic relaxation; its Lakatosian merits; and some methodological problems encountered in establishing such merits.- A. The BPP theory and its problem situation.- B. Explanatory merits with respect to the anomalies of the problem situation.- C. Predictive merits of some further consequences of the BPP theory; a first methodological problem.- D. Predictive merits of still other consequences of “the BPP theory”: two further methodological problems.- E. The BPP programmita.- F. Conclusions.- 2. Line shapes in solids.- A. Dipolar line broadenings.- B. Nuclear electric quadrupole splitting.- 3. Nmr phenomena in metals.- A. The Knight shift and its theoretical explanation.- B. Spin-lattice relaxation in metals, and Korringa’s relation.- C. Intermezzo: an application of the concepts from chapter I.- D. Conclusions.- 4. The chemical shift.- A. The phenomenon of chemical shift and Lamb’s formula.- B. Ramsey’s 1950 theory of the chemical shift.- C. Explanatory and predictive merits of Ramsey’s 1950 theory.- D. Ramsey’s 1952 elaborations of his theory of the chemical shift.- 1. Gauge transformation of the 1950 theory.- 2. Accounting for temperature dependence.- E. Examples of later developments of the chemical shift programmita.- 1. Interpretation of fluorine shifts.- 2. Interpretation of proton shifts in aromatic compounds.- F. Conclusions.- 5. A shift in liquids due to paramagnetic ions.- A. The phenomenon and the theory that explains it.- B. Significance for Lakatos’s theory.- 6. The hyper fine splitting.- A. The occurrence of unusual multiplet structures in liquids.- B. The formulation of the empirical regularity of hyperfine splitting and the search for its theoretical explanation.- 1. Gutowsky.- 2. Hahn.- C. The successful explanation of the new phenomenon.- D. Later developments of the hyperfine programmita.- E. Conclusions.- 1. Stages of theory formation.- 2. Evaluation of the development in terms of the scale of chapter I.- 7. Remarks on later developments of the nmr programme.- 8. Conclusions.- A. Evaluation of claim 3’.- 1. Coarse grating picture of the nmr programme.- 2. Finer grating picture of the nmr programme.- B. Evaluation of claim 3a.- C. Kuhn’s theory or Laudan’s is not the answer.- D. How to proceed next.- V. Theories from the Nmr Programme as Theories of Measurement: Resolving the Anomaly.- 1. Nmr theories as theories of measurement.- A. Examples.- 1. Chemical shifts and the structure of molecules.- 2. Line shapes in solids and the structure of crystals.- 3. Temperature dependent chemical shifts and chemical equilibria.- 4. Spin-lattice relaxation and dynamical molecular processes.- B. The logical structure of theory application.- 1. The HD and RD schemes of scientific reasoning.- 2. Analysis of the examples.- 3. Conclusion.- 2. The phenomena being observed in applying theories of nmr belong to other domains.- 3. The dependence of the nmr programme on extrinsic success.- A. Resolving the explicit anomalies collected in IV.8.- 1. Nmr programme as a degenerating, though actually successful research programme.- 2. Lack of correlation between the actual success of nmr programmita’s and their ratings on the scale of intrinsic success.- B. Some implications.- C. A remark for chemists and physicists.- D. Guide to the remaining chapters.- VI. The Structure of Theory Development: The Nmr Programme Seen from the Structuralist Perspective.- 1. The structuralist perspective on “normal science”.- A. The notion of a theory net.- B. Conditions of adequacy to be imposed on a net representing an actual piece of science.- 2. The theory net representing the nmr programme.- 3. The nature of the elaboration relation 190.- A. Reflections on the structure of the basic theory of nmr.- B. A particular claim on the E-relation entertained within the structuralist conception.- C. The E-relation in the net representing the nmr programme.- D. Implications for the structuralist programme 201 4. Elucidation of the “conceptual” terms of Lakatos’s theory.- 4. Elucidation of the “conceptual” terms of Lakatos’s theory.- VII. Intrinsic Success and Extrinsic Success of Research Programmes; A Model of Scientific Development Unifying the Approaches of Lakatos and the Starnberg School.- 1. External influentiability according to the Starnberg school; two successive models.- A. The alternatives model.- B. The finalization model.- 2. The limitations of Lakatos’s model and of the Starnberg finalization model.- A. The finalization model reveals a restriction in the scope of Lakatos’s theory.- B. The scope of the finalization model is restricted as well; two types of external influence.- C. The difference in emphasis between the work of the Starnberg school and the present study.- D. Development of the Starnberg programme after 1973.- 3. Intrinsic success and extrinsic success of research programmes.- A. The two aims of science.- B. The IES model of scientific development.- C. Relationship of IES model with Lakatos’s model and the Starnberg finalization model.- D. The nmr programme and the IES model.- E. Other plausible examples from recent physics and chemistry for the IES model.- 1. Photoelectron spectroscopy.- 2. Quantum chemistry.- 3. Molecular dynamics.- F. Implications of the IES model: the CD model of the cognitive structure of interdisciplinary research.- G. Relevance for other research on the development of science.- 1. The Starnberg programme revisited.- 2. Some links with research within philosophy of science.- 3. Specialty studies within sociology of science.- 4. Links with the views of the physicists: Weisskopf, Casimir, Weinberg.- A. Weisskopf on intensive and extensive developments in 20th century physics.- 1. Weisskopf’s view.- 2. Links with IES model.- B. Casimir on the stages of development of physical theories.- 1. Casimir’s view.- 2. Links with IES model.- C. Weinberg’s criteria for scientific choice.- 1. Weinberg’s emphasis on the extrinsic aim of science.- 2. Rehabilitation of the intrinsic aim by the Physics Survey Committee.- 3. Merits of the IES model: an illustration.- 4. Intensivists versus extensivists.- D. Concluding remarks on the relevance of the IES model for science policy issues.- Notes.- Index of Names.