The Interdependence of Theory and Experiment in Revolutionary Science: The Case of Parity Violation

Abstract

An examination, primarily through citation analysis, is made of the changing interdependence of theory and experiment in a specialty within particle physics, the physics of weak interactions, during a period of rapid intellectual development. Lakatos' notions of how theory and experiment should be related during 'progressive' and 'stagnating' periods are used as guides for the analysis. At the conclusion a suggestion is offered as to the way in which Lakatos' categories might best be used in empirical research.

Synergy through Disunity, Science as Social Practice: Comments on Vanpool and Vanpool

“…By drawing attention to political interests and power structures that influenced successful scientific work, the Strong Programme advanced a "symmetrical" agenda for the sociology of science: that both "good science" and "bad/failed science" could and should be explained with relation to the interests of scientific actors and other relevant groups (Barnes 1977). In the 1980s, a variety of approaches, such as eth-H nomethodology (Lynch 1985;Lynch et al 1983) ethnographies of laboratories (Knorr-Cetina 1981;Latour and Woolgar 1979;Rabinow 1996;Traweek 1988), analyses of discourse (Collins and Pinch 1979;Gilbert and Mulkay 1981;MulkayetaL 1983;White et al 1979), and feminist epistemology (Haraway 1989;Harding 1986;Keller 1985;Longino 1990), overlapped with the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge school (see Pickering 1992:1-2 for a concise though partial summary). More recently, many authors (Hacking 1992;Pickering 1992), including some of those cited above, have addressed the chief weakness of the Strong Programme-that reducing science to the interests of scientific actors does not catch the richness of scientific practiceand moved toward more nuanced, empirical accounts of science in action.…”