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Explaining Scientific Change: Integrating the Cognitive and the Social

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Paul Thagard
Paul Thagard*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
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Extract

In 1979, Dr. J. Robin Warren of the Royal Perth Hospital in Australia discovered bacteria in the biopsies of stomach tissue taken from patients with digestive complaints. His colleague Dr. Barry Marshall followed up on Warren's work and found the bacteria in many patients with stomach inflammation and peptic ulcers (Marshall and Warren 1984). When Marshall claimed at a medical conference that bacteria are the principal cause of peptic ulcers, his remarks were rejected as preposterous. It was widely believed that the human stomach's caustic gastric juices made it too antiseptic for bacteria to survive for long. Moreover, alternative explanations of the principal cause of ulcers were available, focusing on excess acidity and emotional stress. Stung by rejection of his theory and failure of animal experiments, Marshall resorted in 1984 to drinking the bacteria himself, and underwent endoscopy and biopsy to show that his stomach had indeed become inflamed (Monmaney 1993).

Type
Part IX. Integrating Cognitive and Social Models of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 298 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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