Articulation of Parts Explanation in Biology and the Rational Search for them

Abstract

With the realization that the grounds upon which an hypothesis comes to be formulated can be considered separately from the grounds upon which it is accepted, it has become popular among some philosophers and scientists to claim that although it may be of psychological interest to understand the genesis of hypotheses, there can be no logic of search or discovery. While it is unclear exactly what is meant by the claim that there can be no logic of search, it is clear that this opinion, coupled with anecdotes of Poincaré’s sudden solution of a mathematical problem while stepping on a Madrid streetcar, and Kekulé’s vision of a snake biting its tail, have left the aura that the generation of an hypothesis is as mysterious as a Gestalt shift in perception of a figure. Perhaps because Gestalt shifts seem to occur without a processes of reasoning, but in some sense, spontaneously, the use of such perceptual shifts as models of hypothesis formation have lent support to the claim that there can be no logic of search. To a practicing scientist, the image of the startling ‘shift’ and insight might seem overly flattering of the scientist’s genius, and the actual generation of hypotheses seem more reasonable and less mysterious. Some of the ways in which the generation of an hypothesis is a rather reasonable affair will be discussed below in conjunction with an effort to examine some of the features of what I am calling articulation of parts explanations, as they occur in biology.