Experimental Discovery, Data Models, and Mechanisms in Biology: An Example from Mendel’s Work - Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics - page 111

elaborated into the notion of a particulate Mendelian factor or gene. The notion of
trait bearer was envisaged by Mendel in his use and speculation of “Elemente,” but
he did not specify Elemente as particulate, nor did he discover any law of heredity,
nor did he develop a theory of genes.
The foregoing discussion shows how Mendel's data models were “grafted” to
Mendelian theory of genetics and were interpreted by later geneticists as the
empirical evidence for the theory. This process with Mendel's experimental dis-
covery is important, and even crucial, to the discovery of Mendelian mechanism of
heredity.
5 Experimental Discovery and Mechanism
Recall Kuhn's views of scientific discovery. Kuhn ( 1970 ) argued that the occur-
rence of anomalous phenomena is usually a prelude to the emergence of new
paradigms or theories. It suggests that searching for a plausible explanation of
anomalous phenomena should be scientists' main motive for establishing a new
theory. In other words, from the perspective of scientific practice, identifying a
crucial anomaly seems to play a pivotal role in shaping the pattern of theory
changes.
Kuhn's description seems to be consistent with the general process of scientific
discoveries. However, for Kuhn, the discovery of a new phenomenon would be
recognized only when the anomaly is solved, accompanied by a paradigm shift. In
other words, scientists develop a new paradigm to provide a solution for that
original anomaly and recognize the solution as a new discovery. On this point I
disagree with Kuhn, because the recognition of a new phenomenon usually occurs
prior to rather than posterior to the building of new theories. I think that the general
process of scientific discoveries would consist of the following stages: the occur-
rence of novel data, the recognition and discovery of new phenomena, and the
building and discovery of new theories, in that order. Mendel's case shows that the
experimental discovery of hereditary phenomena led to the construction of Mende-
lian theories. Now the question is: How can discovery of new phenomena be
recognized in the absence of new theories? I have argued, taking Mendel's work
as an example, that the establishment of models of experimental data in the
recognition of new phenomena is entitled to be called an experimental discovery.
However, this is not complete; there is a need to supply a mechanistic condition.
According to the new mechanistic philosophy, a theory can explain a phenome-
non by describing its underlying mechanism. Synthesizing my view on the process
of scientific discoveries with the mechanistic view of theories, one can see that the
experimental discovery of new phenomena is usually a prelude to a scientific
discovery—meaning the formation of a new theory and the discovery of
mechanisms from the mechanistic perspective. This indicates the key role experi-
mental discovery plays in the discovery of mechanism. If there were no new
phenomena to be explained, scientists would have no motive to construct new