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Mesosomes: A Study in the Nature of Experimental Reasoning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert G. Hudson
Robert G. Hudson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Concordia University
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Abstract

Culp (1994) provides a defense for a form of experimental reasoning entitled ‘robustness’. Her strategy is to examine a recent episode in experimental microbiology—the case of the mistaken discovery of a bacterial organelle called a ‘mesosome’—with an eye to showing how experimenters effectively used robust experimental reasoning (or could have used robust reasoning) to refute the existence of the mesosome. My plan is to criticize Culp's assessment of the mesosome episode and to cast doubt on the epistemic significance of robustness. In turn, I present a different account of the experimental reasoning microbiologists used in arriving at the conclusion that mesosomes are artifacts. I call this form of reasoning ‘reliable process reasoning’, and close the paper with a brief discussion of how experimental microbiologists justify the claim that an experimental process is reliable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 289 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, 8 Doncaster Ave., London, Ontario N6G 2A2 Canada.

‡

I would like to thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, Allan Franklin and William Harper for discussions on related issues, and Arthur Hudson for assistance in research.

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