CEFISES Seminar: Caterina Schürch, “The art of cherry-picking: Integrating hist. and phil. analyses”

Okay, great. Thank you for for being here. Welcome to the uh second to last HPS series that we found this year as I um and today we have uh Katina. Uh I said that right. Um so thank you for being here. Um uh so yeah going to talk about a problem that I think is is very classic in in in discussions about how to integrate or not integrate history and philosophy of science. um which is the the acquisition I think that's mostly historians say of philosophers right that that that they are cherry picking and uh and um yeah so so um and I think here presented in a much more positive light um think about how we should do uh we could do chair picking uh yeah so the next >> thank you so much N and for inviting me it has been very productive for to um come up with ideas for this talk. Um they could not all be implemented in what I'm going to show you. It is not as polished as I wish it to be, but um I'm super happy about being here. I'm very thankful for you joining um in um and yeah I'm super glad to present not only um some research that is um was my um PhD research um but also my thoughts about how I work and um it's been good to to to take a step back and to to think about that for a moment again after I did it I think more when I did um still study the history of science and history of um and philosophy of science. Then there was a more active occasion with this with these topics and then I somehow ended up um after doing a bachelor um of science in history and philosophy of science I ended up in a history department still working on still being a philosophy philosophic minded um historian of science and so today I'm speaking to you as a historian um being appointed as a historian of science um and technical university in Berlin But of course still interested in in these philosophical issues. Um and um I'm super glad for talking to you about that. Um and cherrypicking was the um the metaphor that I wanted to start with and maybe hopefully come back to in the end. Um my idea is that I'm going to talk about doing HBS um as you um probably want me to giving the title of the colloquium and then talk about the challenges that come with it. Uh but mostly present you my approach, how I um did it and want to do it in the future, the opportunities I see. Um and the plan for the talk is as follows. um need to and a bit on myself to think about why do we integrate disciplines and how what is my particular approach? What can be said about that? um apart from my particular approach about doing H3S in general um and what can be new avenues for me myself but also maybe for the fields and community for um of HBS. I try to do a like a parallel narrative of integrating biology and chemistry which was the topic um of my PhD. Um, so I analyzed how biologists and chemists came to work together, but also I tried to use this now as a a springboard for you to talk about how to integrate history philosophy. Um, so it will be maybe a bit an annoying switching between the actual work and the meta. Um, yeah. So yeah, I just want to warn you in advance and maybe it's a bad idea to do it like that, but I myself found it fun in preparing it. Um just to give a bit of a background motivation for what is good to come. Um you probably know the um society of integrated HS and their mission statement. Um it is um looking at follows and I want to highlight a couple of points. Um the claim that one can effectively advance history, science and philosophy of science simultaneously is one of the core assumptions of HBS and something that has been disputed and denied um often. The claim that there is a common goal um which is understanding science and then of course a big question is what is the science that we are talking about? Um what is this exactly? Is it something really abstract um that maybe has never taken place in history or is it needs it to be um something that that has um been done and then maybe not fulfilled all the criteria that we wanted science to be. So there's a bit of bit of attention there and I think much of the debate about HS about what is the experimental what are we really interested in understanding and then the um the idea that we have to do good history of science and good philosophy of science when we do HPS. So we still have to adhere to all the standards of the disciplines. Um and this has been one entry point for the criticism um to say it's impossible to when we do history then we leave whatever philosophers want us to do um and vice versa because as a historian you need to grant everything you say in sources. You have to be really sensitive to the context. Um it's always local. It's always um about local time and space um it's always particular and as a philosopher you want to be clear and simple and abstract and maybe universal in your statements. Um so that has been um identified as attention. So just let's keep that in the um back of the mind and maybe what I say during the talk can then be used to come back to this um these claims and um will help me to um to to feed my my take on that. Back to doing HPS and its challenges. One thing I want to suggest um is that oh something I I decided for me to do at some point is not to care so much about all the things that could go wrong when doing HBS and to really concentrate on all the risk that we take but more focus on if we want to do it how can we do it in a good way. um how can we even think about how to what should what does the discipline need or the group of people need um in order to do it um in a good way. So rather look uh for the opportunities and not so much um just destroy ourselves by only focusing on the challenges because it's not a it's not um maybe a coincidence that HBS scholars have been so willing to engage in these debates about their own method but maybe it um yeah for my taste it was um we were stuck a bit um in these debates whereas um it would be more interesting to think about the constructive side. Um, so the big question for me is how can we use our historical and philosophical resources and skills most effectively? And if we want to combine them, how does philosophy help me as a historian to do my work? and how can what I do help philosophers and what is and what shall we do um but let's get started and now I leave this meta methodological discourse and I will present you with a case study um and we go back to the question why integrating disciplines and I in this case that I looked at um half people in the um area between the wars in the 1920s and 1930s decided to work on problems that needed chemistry and philosoph and embiology to be solved and the answer I found is that they did it in order to solve their problems. Um and in one of the cases um that I I'm going to start with it was a problem um in physiology in sensory physiology um that was solved um by using skills and resources from physical chemistry. The person um who did that was D um who studied physics and chemistry in his undergraduate um training. Um and then he went on to do a PhD in zoolology at Harvard. um and his whole career built on experiments that he performed in the year of n of 1917 um in La Hoya at the scripts um marine biological institution and he worked with Siona intestinalis that's um an invertebrate animal but um cesile in one of its life stages and the um important thing about Sona testalis for hex project was that these animals are sensitive to light. They would not be able to differentiate between different colors. But if um confronted with a sudden um illumination, sudden beam of light, they would retract their siphons. So just um pull them back and used um I told you things um from physical chemistry um especially the part called photochemistry in order to solve the problem of what it is um that happens in the sensory cells of these animals um before the nerve um impulse then is checked. And um looking back to his career, he commented here then in this um two books, one by Shepher published in 1914 and one by Fitz Vot Germanist in 1911 was knowledge which could be drawn on for an understanding of the nature of vision and photo reception. So the idea is we have knowledge from another field um and we can use it to uh achieve the goal that we want to achieve. which is a goal from another discipline here, physiology. And I worked out in my thesis how exactly this knowledge was helpful. Um, and it was in terms of guiding hect how to design his experiments. Um, from how to manipulate um his study object to what to measure and how to interpret his data. for all these um parts photochemistry was instrumental and I'll just give you a a quick impression um of this very um first experiment which went as follows. Um Hec had um 10 different animals um that he collected the day before. um the animals would be still alive and they would be um um light would be applied to them and the light would um vary in its um intensity. So we have six different intensities of light here. Um the way he varied intensity is just to you would have the animal in this little dish below have the master lamp here and then you would change the distance of the lamp um to the animal and this is how you um have a more intense um beam of light at stage six and a less intense one at one. So here we have these different um values of intensity of light. 10 different animals. Every animal has been um subjected to each intensity three times. and he would measure the time it took the animal to retract the siphon because he found out in prior experiments that this um reaction time was consistent for a given intensity and for an animal more or less. Um so it's he had hopes for this to be um an important data point. So, how long does it take for the animal at different intensities to react to the light? And he found that the more intense the light was, the quicker the reaction was. Um, and this he knew is one of the Oh, well, it's it's the basic idea of the law of Bansome and Rasco. So, we had um come back to that. We see in his notebook that this is the law that he formulated in his nose. This is how he um calculated these numbers here in the table. And there was um photochemistry as a field that started in the um 1860s. So way before it had to do with the um the chemical reactions on a photographic plate. So the the chemical effect that Bonen and Rosco were talking about was to the blackening of a photosensitive um paper or um and yeah they formulated the the law that it takes a a fixed um amount of energy to elicit a photochemical effect and energy is the product of time and intensity. So you can um either have more stronger intensity and a shorter time of exposition or a longer time of exposition and um less intensity but the product would be the same and you would get an effect. So Hec found that his animals would show their behavior of a photographic plate in a sense. Um they would show a particular reaction um which is the refraction of the siphon um that obeys this law. And he argues that this means that the amount of energy required by soma the animal for reaction is the same for all intensities. this is the familiar phenomenon in the chemical effect of light and that has some interesting um consequences. He argues then in terms of the processes that go on in the sense organs, the applicability of the repres means that during the sensitation period, the light must form a constant quantity of a substance before it can produce its stimulating effect. Idea being that something goes on in the sensory organs. We don't know what, but at the end of that process, there's um a nerve stimulation. Apparently, it takes some time for this process to um run. And his um the consequence he draws from the fact that the law of Androsco applied to these animals and the reaction is that undoubtedly this involves the conversion of a photosensitive substance into something else. which acts then as an inner stimulus. Many such photosensitive substances are well known and have been studied with considerable care. So from knowing that these animals react to light but not knowing why and how what happens on a on a chemical level, he found evidence um for the thesis that there's a conversion that happens because of the chemical action of light on a photochemical substance into a nonphotochemical substance. maybe something else happens but then the nerve um trigger is instantiated. And then he went on and um a further uh set of experiments was designed in a way that he would um expose the animals to short intervals of light um after they were brought in the dark. And he would see that they would a colloquial way of saying is this is that they adapt to the light they get more sensitive. So whereas it takes a long time in the beginning for them to react the longer they spent in the dark um the shorter is the reaction time. Um this dynamics of the reaction time we said can be translated in the fact that less and less energy um is required every time and that on a material basis less and less of the substance P is required um in order to get the effect this I don't know how mindblowing it seems to you um it was in many ways It was in the time and in many ways it was not because how was it not in the sense that it was an idea that has been around for the longest time. As soon as photography um was developed, there were um hypotheses that this is how vision works. And as soon as photochemistry was developed in the 1860s, it was also clear to many photochemists and to many physiologists that probably this would be helpful to study vision. Um but then nothing happened for a very long time. So everyone thought this is a really um obvious idea but no one was able to really prove it, to show it, to investigate it. um mostly because it was really hard to get um to isolate the the pigment um responsible for for light vision. And then Hector's idea was to say, well, I don't need to isolate the substance. I don't need to monitor its behavior and check whether it follows the behavior that we know um so well from the photochemical substances that we have studied um elsewhere. It um in non-living um systems. This is pretty cool, but it's even cooler um or this just um something I wanted to mention. So um of course you need um a little bit of additional hypothesis for this experiment to work. You need to for example think that the nerve simulation and muscle contraction that takes um next to no time. So that you can take the whole re light reaction time um as a proxy for the time used for light perception also. and we will see um how important they are. He found these animals that he could use for the experiments. Um animals that are slow enough in their reaction that you can really follow. Um the time it took them to react um animals that did not have any psychological apparatus, any optical apparatus that um as vertebrates would have. um animals that would just allow access to studying the photo receptive um mechanism. But what is astonishing is that exactly at the same time or here and four years earlier a physicist had the same idea and he had really he he had the same idea of how to use the dynamics um of the reaction to prove that this is a photochemical um process. um but he wasn't able to do any experiments um because he did not have access to these experimental animals or the idea that these particular animals could be used for that kind of experiment. There's another um actor it's um a physiologist this time August Pa in the same year as hect um published the same idea um that sensory processes probably um are these um reversible chemical reactions and he also provided an idea how to analyze that mathematically. also said that he would not be able to um really do the maths but he um had help from his um friend. Um and then there were people like um to Kashua who did this exact same experiments as as he did with um the repeated applications of light beams. and they would just say, "Well, what we see here is an animal that gets used to light and so it is quicker and quicker in responding." And Hector would say um about this explanation is not a good explanation because it gives us no insight into what really happens um in the system. And these kinds of experiments about dark adaptation and how eyes get more sensitive the longer they are um in the dark, they have been around um for decades that has been a really um hot topic in physiology um throughout. And the way these data were presented is to give the tables of how much more sensitive um the study object became. And he criticizes that this sensitivity and simplified says nothing. Um it just gives us the minimum intensity that is necessary to elicit a reaction. about it. We we are not um we not do not know more about what happens in the system and rather he would interpret it in the way we saw um saying that well we need less of a particular substance to get the reaction. Um and this is what in Heft's case um photochemistry this knowledge. So sorry that was a bit of a long excurs but this knowledge really brought um so it was a key ingredient for him to know this is how I should design my experiment. This is how I can use my experiment to um come up with a a model of the mechanism of photo reception. And just to give you an impression of how extensive that input was, um we have I have here in um these titles just the titles of the little book by Vot of what he discusses and we can see that directly it was a direct blueprint for hect of what to study in his experiments in the day in the years that followed. So he had papers on every of these relations that um Vet discusses for um photochemical reactions in in vitro. Um so we can just um go through this and one of the important factors for example has been temperature. um Hector then and the next year um used another experimental animal which was this clum that I showed you before that also has the same same reaction of retracting the siphon here. And he would um heat the water the clown was in um with it in alcohol lamp and then see whether in fact the part of the reaction time that is the sensitization period is running faster or stays the same um depending on the temperature of the water and he found it is invariant to temperature changes which we know um is the case for photochemical reactions. So another um good hint that this could be um a photochemical reaction going on. So, and with that I want to step back again and say could we maybe think about the relation of philosophy and history in a similar way that photochemistry was for Hec um and his project in physiology. in that in my case the literature on um the search mechanisms was important to design my work with the case studies. So everything that that I would read about um the new mechanism literature um gave me hints of what I needed to look for in my historical cases and um in a way similar to to hacked. Of course I did not perform any experiments um but it would give me an idea of how to choose the historical episodes that I'm going to focus on. um what really to do with them and give me an idea of how I could interpret um what I found. And let me spell this out a bit. Um and just at the same time also say for a moment that we can but for me it is I I can formulate the goal of the project in purely historical terms. So what I want to understand is why biological chemical research projects were initiated in the 1920s and 30s. And that question alone does not necessarily imply that um I need um the the philosophy about mechanisms to answer that question. Um but why and now it's it's the cherry picking in the other way around. So why would I as Dorian pick the cherry of the um new mechanism philosophy and not maybe something else? Um, and what it made for me was um the fact that from maybe you're all too familiar with that, so I don't really need to um say anything about it, but >> not. >> Yeah. Um, >> don't be shy. So uh it starts off with a characterization of what an mechanism is namely entities and activities organized in a way that the phenomenon we're interested in um is produced. And then the the what made it appealing to me is that from there the there were plays about research practice. Um for example about what is the goal of biological research. goal is to find mechanisms or to discover mechanisms and for that you need to find entities and activities and attach activities to entities and vice versa and find out about the organization and think about what is the start point and the end point and so on. So it gives us ideas of what biologist biologists really want to achieve. Um it gives us standards that need to be fulfilled. Um I would not I need ideally a full description of how one entity and its activities lead to the other so that you get from the start to the end um point. And this is exactly what I what is needed to explain um the phenomenon of interests and so on. people um writing about mechanisms have then really described certain strategies of how biologists would proceed to get there. Um and they also argued that the search for mechanisms typically is an interdicciplinary endeavor. So normally you do not do it within one single discipline. Um one quote um I have here is that the integration of biology is forged by building mechanism schemas that span many different bridge across many different time scales um and that satisfy evidential constraints from many areas of biology, chemistry and physics too. So um in order to fulfill the goal that you want to achieve, you typically need the instruments, the skills, the resources from different disciplines. There is no particular um as far as I know claim about how these um these collaborations come into existence. Why a chemist and a physicist would be interested in cooperating with biologists? These are open questions which for me as a HPS scholar is nice because then I can make the point maybe there's something in history that could be um informative and interesting for philosophy. Um that was a starting point. Um there's also a claim by many of these um authors that understand many of them understand themselves as philosophers of science in practice that what they describe is really informed by actual scientific practice and historical practice. And some of them said nothing in biology and the history of biology makes sense um except in light of mechanisms. Um so this really the claim that that this should help us understand the history of biology. So another um in a way a clear signal for me why not look for this and a potential explanation for historical phenomena. So if um I can really prove that they were trying to um discover mechanisms in the way it is described in the philosophical literature, I can explain why they um for example combined chemistry and biology. So I have like a blueprint for my argument provided. Um before I show you how I rationalize this, um it was important for me, um and also vice versa, my colleagues in history to establish that there is really is need for this explanation for an explanation of um why people collaborated and um mixed with biology and chemistry. Even though of course in history there have been um ideas and thesis about how cross-disiplinarity um became a thing in the 1920s and 30s. They have argued for example we have um just had the first world war and especially in America um and how the war effort was organized there now was a a culture of collaboration. people were used to do um collaborative project now they um have uh reasons to import into science as well. Um, another explanation that has been given is that there was the Rockefeller Foundation and um, it issued a program that was especially um, tailored to support biology that would use physics and chemistry. Um, that was only done in um, 32. Um so a bit after the the um the person we just looked at in the project and he actually even wrote to a friend of his own um they're they're really um in intelligent to come up with uh that idea but also they are travel um slow in in maturing um coming to the conclusion that it's good. Um but of course that's an that's often um an argument brought by historians. we have to look at the financial structure, the incentives, the the the the resources that are available for a certain kind of research. And then there was another line of explanation which was um that there was a tendency in biology at the time to distance oneselves from descriptive biology, from morphology. Um so everything that was quantitative that was experimental was uh seen as good and as something that is progressive and um something that brings you near to um to physics and chemistry um gives you the impression of biology being a science but then still having all these explanation which I don't do not reject at all um I argue that there's still not sufficient to understand what exactly has been done because then even if you um are forced to work interdisiplinary as a biologist for example to cooperate with the chemist you have to come up with an idea of what to do exactly and how you would combine um your problems and your your resources and skills and I found um some some historical um some some evidence or some some pot for this idea. I have for example Chapek a plant physiologist who said it is well known how important and how difficult it is in physiology to select the right point of the complex questions to be investigated in which the lever of the physical method has to be used first. So you can be super okay with using physics and chemistry but where and how exactly is not easy to decide. uh William Bis a physiologist from the UK said although a student may have attended good courses in the physical sciences um he she does not readily apply the knowledge to physiological problems but it's because it's not readily apparent how and looking from the other side from biochemistry Hopkins at some point said the regular chemist has no aptitude for biological problems and does not recognize them so it's really hard also if a chemist would think about what he could provide or she to biology, they would not know what the biologist's problems are. So finding a fit between the skills and resources and the problems of different um disciplines, it's really really hard. I would also say it's the main challenge um for us as historians and philosophies of science which is to preface this. But um how did I proceed in my own work? I had four different case studies and this similar set of questions for all of them. I started out by for all these projects to just describe what they did and for that I used um lab notes um their publications letters they wrote um just normal things you would use as a historian um to establish that. Then I specifically um worked out what they wanted to achieve, what um kinds of methological standards they were emphasizing um what their particular resources and skills were um at the beginning of the the interdiciplinary project. So what was in a way the starting conditions of um these projects? Then um the most specific point of analysis was what what kind of ideas did the protagonist have about how things that were part of the different disciplines were connected? Um I can show you in a moment what I mean. But for example for heck it was the idea that these photochemical reactions are connected. The photochemical reactions are the things that connect photochemistry and physiology because the photochemical reactions happen in an animal. Um then the fourth section had to do with um how then it really took place. How was the project implemented? What kind of strategies were used? What were the different steps? Um how did maybe goals and standards and resources used um change? what kinds of alliances on a institutional and personal level um came about and so forth. And then in the end, how did the protagonists themselves and how did the people around them in the discipline evaluate um the results of the projects. We already saw um the example of the cact and the action of the animals. I had another um project that or another case study that was um concerned with two groups um a group of botonist and group of organic chemist in um they have been the goal here was to isolate the hormone that is responsible for plant growth. Um the botists at the outset of the collaboration already have established that there must be a chemical substance. They did not how it looked like what its characteristics um was and the chemist came newly to interact and he wanted he was really into the business of natural substances chemistry. So finding hormones, finding vitamins, finding um these kinds of substances. Um but he and he knew in order to find these substances I need a biological system. I need these kinds of reactions in order to find it. Um and this is how they did it. Um let me So there was um they used little um oat seedlings at the stage but um where it was still a col. So now the green leaf has not um broken through. cut the um the top end of these um seedlings because it was clear that in the top end the substance was produced and then apply candidate um substances of the hormone onto the seedling on just one half of it and then see from the curvature um how enriched the substance already is in the sample that they tried. So um the today we will call that a bio essay. The plant is is just used as an indicator of whether you have the substance um that you're interested in or not. Um and then there is a third case that I will explain uh later when I have a better slide to it. And then I had a a fourth case that I won't tell you about anything at all, but it was a case that was not successful in the way that they didn't um achieve anything that they themselves or their peers around could see as breakthrough in the understanding of biological re um phenomena. With my remaining time, I would just give you very quick impressions of how I looked for these um different things. For example, how did I um try to identify the goal um of CDC? Um I would at one point resources like um research applications were really applications for funding were super helpful because there you have to um state your goal and you do it um before the fact which is I found more informative than the retrospective story they gave. Um but at this time the applications were not as um expensive as they are now. Um so for Hector was really um uh in informative also just to look at the publications and where he would formulate what is the goal of his whole project and he gives this um statement at one point that finally to reach a more less more or less um complete statement of the physical chemical nature of the substances and processes that underly the photosensory responses of an animal like MIA. That is the goal of my work and that um if we compare that to the expectation of uh the new mechanists um that is I would say that can be um brought in uh yeah that that um corresponds quite well. Um, and then the maybe the trickiest part was to find out about their methodological standards because I didn't want to rely on their self presentation in like more pmic um pieces. So I also looked in the publications for the um for the ways in which they specify what needed to be achieved in order for the problem to be solved in a satisfactory way. And here's one um example when he says an analysis of sensory simulation in order to be objective. So objective is a um a norm that he wants to fulfill must take its data from the relations between the properties of the stimulating agent and those of the response of the animal. Um it also needs to be quantitative. Um so we need to be able to measure the simulation but also the um the reaction in quantitative terms and we need to of course be able to control it. And then um he in a German publication said the end goal of the whole um business is to understand the um stimulation process in terms of the physical and chemical um characteristics of the substances that are the components of the organ um of um concern. So we have these things in the um in the publications and then even more beautifully I could trace that back to his own education. I found his lecture notes at Columbia University where we see that for example he um at least he noted the fellow bibliographical um details of an article by be and also from his um notes uh from the lecture of his professor he really um was taught that when we are thinking about sensory processes we are does required to know about um >> also >> possible environmental stimula. Exactly. And we also the Parker who gave the lecture followed the suggestion of um of that we should define sensory processes in terms of the stimuli. Um so that's a really um good hint that this is something that he learned to care for and then did care for. Um, another thing that he apparently um cited in his book in his lab book was this article by um a colleague of his who said the um if we want to say something about the mechanism of visual response, we need to def um employ the definite structural and quantitative concepts of theoretical physics and chemistry and then make dynamic arguments and so on and so So this is how I um learned more or tried to work out the the protagonists methodological standards. Then I needed to work out the resources and skills they deemed important and um for that I could um for example use uh things they bought and the receipts. Um here is a postto from the group um in that then went to Ctech and founded his own group working on the similar project and he immediately again um ordered the same kinds of um research organisms um these seeds of a particular line um bread in Sweden or he builds um facilities where he could control the temperature and the humidity of the of the room, which was um really important to control um the environment for for his um experiments to work. Um so this is how you would learn about resources and skills. Um, also another way and this is how it then began to really click nicely with um how I could combine these kinds of analysis with then things that we might want to explain with which is um why did here camps and biologists need to collaborate in a project like this. um we saw clearly that the chemist who came to UK had an expectation that he needed um biologists or physicians for this kind of um work. And then on the other hand, um, let me get you again the well doesn't really help. But then um the botonists on the other hand they were super happy to help the chemists to find the hormone because it was clear for them that the next step for for their project is to have the hormone to then know about it characteristics but also to use it again in their own physiological experiments to see how exactly the hormones affects the plant. Um that again was important for the chemists to know because they wanted to know why is the hormone working? what are the characteristics of the hormone that make it um biologically active. So this is a really nice way of how the different parties had different goals but were interdependent in a way that it was clear that they could only achieve their relative goals together and it was clear because of this logical structure of the interdependence that the botonists wanted were ready to help um with all the resources that they had. So that was one year of um all of the manpower they had to just do this experiments um in order to find the hormone and then it was clear for Kir the chemist to give them half of the substances that he found. um um so really helps to to understand also the social dynamics um of the projects and then I told you I was looking for the interview theories or what what is this called in literature um but that is this this these ideas of how things studied in different disciplines are in fact connected and here is now um this other case study where um a biochemist that was at the same time a geneticist um in William Bates's group but also worked in Fred and Hopkins um biochemistry lab realized that for a particular set of um pigments the anthocyanins these were pigments that in organic chemistry were um isolated and characterized and in genetics These were the kinds of pigments that were responsible for the colors that you would trace um chemically in the European Union um experiments. So she realized here we have a very um good opportunity to combine the two to learn in fact about um how exactly team act and how exactly um the these um pigments are um are produced in the plant. So she said the biochemical interpretation of factors or genetic factors for color is part of a greater problem namely the origin of anticoning in the plant. Um there were two opposing um ideas about that. I don't have to go into detail but then just to give you an impression of the project of how it developed um it was her PhD student Rose Scott Montre who was a bio a biochemist she was able to isolate these kinds of um pigments from plants. Then there was the group of Bateson at the John Inis um center that was um occupied with finding or with coming up with hypotheses of the genetic factors underlying um these uh patterns of flowers. And then there was other groups um one in Oxford by led by Robert Robinson, a very famous organic chemist at the time that tried to synthesize um these pigments. And in this project, Scott Montre had like a key skill which was the the ability to extract um these um these pigments because that was then helpful for both parties um to advance their own research. For the chemists, it was really good to have a proof that what they have synthesized is in fact um the natural occurring pigment. For the geneticists, it was really good to know what they have characterized as a phenotypic difference is in fact a phenotypic difference also on the chemical level and that sometimes similar um pigments would um produce a similar shade in color. So that was a source of imprecision in the um genetic project. So that could be helped with. But then um for for these reasons both parties were really happy to collaborate with Scott Montre. She in fact had another plan um following her teacher Mslow in fact of with um Jane to say well this is our key to understand what the gene actually does. Um so if we know um in a specific case that we have between two plants only one genetic factor that is a difference and we have from the pigments that we isolated out of these plants only one methylation factor that is a difference. We know that this um genetic factor is responsible for this um change in the um chemical structure. So that was a that breakthrough um in chemical genetics and explains again why from the beginning people were happy um from both sides to collaborate with this third person and this third person could do could pursue the project that she wanted to pursue even though from the beginning not both of the um other um parties were really on board because they were not expecting it to work but it did in the end. Um but yeah, he again you see how a particular skill was um a key for a decision for a certain collaboration to to came into being. And then how did I assess um how people evaluated these um projects? We can see whether for example in the case of Kiral his fellow chemists were happy with what he did. They gave him medals and awards and nominated him for the Nobel Prize. Bent the physiologist also got nominated and Kenneth Steven um another um biologist um started out as a chemist. He um got the Kenneth the Steven Hayes prize. Um so when the the fields abroad in crisis that was a clear indication that they were happy and um if if the protagonist themselves were happy. For example here Demon and Bent wrote in their first book publication of the project that few fields can have benefited so much from the close interaction between biological and chemical approaches and the remarkable discoveries um of the chemical site have made possible equally remarkable progress in physiology. This is a very quick run through through what I did. Can I take five more minutes to then still improve? So this is how in the end it was really in my view an effective use of um philosophy because many of the um predictions um made by the philosophers really um were descriptions of things I found um in history and then would help me to at the same time explain by um the chemist was happy to work with the biohysicist or the biochemist um but also why exactly um a certain strategy was employed or why at some point one of the parties lost interest. So it really made sense. I think I have new um inputs for the history of for philosophy of biology about why the the chemist in the the chemists in this um case were interested in collaborating because they had um goals that they could not achieve without um the biological systems and the skills of how to to to manipulate these systems. um I could show um that there were certain um constellations of interdependencies between problems and resources that would reflect on how the research was um organized socially. So we have for example this um case where silic alone was able to integrate everything because he had this background knowledge in physics and chemistry because the chemical the photochemical work was already done independently um and he had an idea of how um to to combine the two but he didn't need to collaborate with anyone um then we have um this case of coordinator the biochemist who had um offerings for both parties who needed um input from both parties and then um brought together these um inputs in her own work. And we have this case of a a really collaboration on um equal terms where both parties from the outset were really clear about that they needed each other and that um uh yeah they could not pursue the goals that were really central to their own discipline without um the skills and expertise of uh and the resources from the other project. So that was really nice and neat. Um and that so maybe here's the point where I can um talk about the cherry picking on the other um way around. So once I began to of course that was not planned in advance and you cannot really do a historical work but once I it became clear to me that these are the structures that I will be able to show. It was also clear that maybe now these are good um cases to compare to each other and that um also with the with the fourth case of the failure that I could make the points that I want to make on a more general level on the basis of these three um case studies because they were different and interesting ways. So it gave me in a way an idea of now I'm done. like I have done my homework. Similarly um with another point that I will come to um in a in a minute but on the other way around this set of um things I needed to do that was also informed by the philosophy similarly helped me to structure my work on the historical case. It gave me um some clear indications of what I need to worry about and what not and that I need not go into much details about for example the the religious belief systems of my protagonists because um I would in so far as they would have affected their goals and standards and resources and skills it would have been relevant but as long as I checked these things out of my list I I would has everything I need um to make the argument. It also gave me in a way a clear direction and focus of what to do. Um and this is to come back to what I said in the beginning how I think HDS can help each other's discipline can help us to to be effective and to know what to do and maybe what not to care about too much. Um I already said what can I offer to the philosophers? um on one hand an idea of why chemists and um physicists would be interested in searching for mechanisms or being part of a a research endeavor that is looking for mechanisms on the other hand I maybe it's super apparent to you for me it really helps to realize one thing which is that the way the philosophers um formulate their expectations about um research practice is top down or um from the end result back to the beginning in a way that they first characterize the end goal of the endeavor which is the mechanism model and from that um develop what needs to be done which is to develop test and revise a model um and what kind of skills and resources are needed. So this is thinking from the the product back to how we get there. Um whereas if I want to tell the story as a historian is important to to start with resources and skills or maybe formulate it in another way. It is not for any of these cases that people decided oh I want to learn about vision or oh I want to learn about plant growth. It was not curiositydriven decision to work on a particular mech mechanism but it was a pragmatic decision. It was um built on the idea of what do I have? What is um what are my skills? What are my resources? Um this silic already did his PhD work on assistians. um the lab of state of of um Fitz already worked on these color trials for for 10 years. Similarly, the the projects on the genetics of um flower color went on for for 20 years by then and the um the organic chemistry. So these are all established um sets of skills and resources that have a history and they're starting from these um grounds that people thought about the the problems that they um were that I decided to attack next. So now we can think about what is that a problem for philosophy? Does not need to be. Um it can just be the the different things you're interested in. Of course the it's not the the problem of the philosopher to explain why this particular person in that point of time um decided to do this and that next. Still, it was important for me to realize that we maybe that's still an like something that is a result of um logical positivism and our um fixation with with um just sentences that we are interested in the the formulation of the model and that is um how we analyze research practice and we're not really um taking the the stance of the the actor Um, but it could it could be an just an an input to think about that if if we if that's fine for us as philosophers to do it that way or what it would mean to develop a philosophy of science in practice that um takes the other stance. I think that's enough for today other things but um this is how I want to close. I think um yeah um okay >> water break water Okay. Nice. Thank you for for for this talk. Uh um yeah question. special but I want to >> okay now um you said that you use as the new mechanics you use entities and entities and activities so therefore it's the my camera >> I'm closer to vector but >> yeah that's that's that's my question because why did you choose this one this one of mechanism because activities is not always obvious in your case. >> Yes, >> in your cases in your cases study that activity is the right way to understand the mechanism. >> Well, for example, >> but just >> on the other hand, on the other hand, I can understand MDC these people they wrote much more about the standard the strategy the nesting of a mechanism other tools that you use in other part of your your work. So why why choose this one? Well, that was pretty pragmatic. I would not see how the difference between operations and activities would be relevant for my level of analysis. Activities were really important in the case of act for example because he did not um get a grip on the substance for a long time but could only tell about the characterizations of the activities. How long does it take to have a photochemical conversion? How long does a normal chemical conversion reaction take place? Um, but of I just maybe I was too pragmatic there, but I just took the two definitions as being um as overlapping for for >> everything I needed. And then decomposition and functional decomposition. That's a thing that vector really focuses on. They're pretty close. But uh >> that was important here. >> My impression is that the activities entities are works particularly well on neurons and neuron mechanisms. >> Yeah. >> Less clear in genetic mechanism or in biochemistical mechanism. that case maybe operation uh relation of parts interaction or concept that seems that seems better but depends of the cases of course. >> Yeah. Yes. I mean I I'm open to that could be a next problem to attack to say is are there subtleties between these two um takes that would um that I could um say something productive about by looking at these cases um yes it didn't strike me as relevant not to problematize um these things. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. But um I'm of course open to that. Um yeah, I I took um entities and activities and components and their operations as more or less numbers. Um and then also of course >> on the other hand if you ask that you know clearly they say it's has nothing to do with operation. its activities was chosen for a very specific reason. >> Okay. >> Cra would say that. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. The the the um chemists and the physiologists in the homework case, they were talking about activity and properties. >> Interesting. >> Um activity structure. That was the the relationship that they talked about. Um, and I would have to go to another presentation to really get the the words used by um these people. Um, yes. >> But speaking better your cases. >> I just I just eclectically took from both both strands of the um of the But um I'm I'm open to to to discuss that more and or to to take more care into looking. >> I have a followup regarding that which is so I don't know so much about this literature on new mechanism. Um but so this notions of activities and entities for you they work both as actors categoryish and analytic category sort of is that those concepts are doing the work of bridging between uh your historical work and your philosophical interpretation in a way. So in a way everything um that is mentioned here is these are all connecting points during the bridging. So is it the way people talk about the goal and the norms? Is it about the way the way people talk about what they do and what they need to do it? M >> these are all connecting points and then I was of course not looking for the term activities and entities >> but if um he acted would say something like I showed um the substances and processes that was fine for me to say I have something like entities and activities >> almost it's also the the structure of the sentence already feels very close to the >> it is for Hec it's really it's laughable how close it comes also when he talks about what his measurements are in relation to the target mechanism in the animal and then that the interpretation with so yeah >> you could really if you would have to invent a cherry to that um it could not be done better. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you so much for your talk. There's another following up. I don't want to stick on this point but really could be interesting because another another critics for entities and activities uh is made by an article by ker and marika 2018 I think I don't remember in which they criticize for example activities not all biological processes fit it necessary theology or the meaning that you can give to activity for example there are some process in biology passive osmosis etc >> so I don't know if in your specific case uh it could be interesting to check if in all your logical processes that you're interested in >> or maybe not is it's a general it's not for your case specific necessary. It's a general no remarks general observation. >> Yes. >> Because they they had a lot of problem in biology concerning the entities and activities but it's still mechanism. So the main point is >> yes >> you switch to mechanism. That's an important point. >> Yes. That's still like But yeah, the meaning they they provide some more general less constra notions. I don't remember which one but but maybe it's not sorry to it's not it's really only because I >> Yes. I Yeah. So I didn't come across I so I checked other um of course not only these four cases um for um whether I want to work on them and I didn't come across others that did not um have any activities in it but on the other hand I would not um argue that there are not these cases something I can tell from this um group that didn't um achieve anything in the end is that in my analysis the problem was exactly that they didn't have a link to field theory in terms of either entities or activities. But um so Verizon was always clear. So for this project it was clear on the outside photo perception has somehow something to do with chemicals and photosensitive chemicals. For them it was clear that hormone action and growth. So the hormone there's something about the hormone and that was the this lock and key metaphor that was really um what spread at the time probably something about the structure of the hormone that is important um for the way it acts. Um so they were really perplexed when they found out in fact that that different um differently structured chemicals would have the same physiological action. That was a big problem at some point but then they found a way around it. Um for them it was clear whatever teens do they probably do something on a genetic um level. Um and it was established that um well it was clear that also somehow these pigments in the plant must um be uh de developed somehow. So for all these um projects it was somehow clear what they were suspecting to be the relation. And for this project it was more about well we assume that things that happen in biology are has something to do with electricity. And they had no clear idea of what kind of phenomena they were interested in, what kind of behavior of the system and what kind of electrical um process on on the on the physical chemical level that they could really then pursue and test and make plausible. Um so that was just did the lack of any ideas of what kind of behavior and activities they were concerned with. um even though they knew it must be something that has to do with electricity and the charge of the particles um was the reason why they didn't arrive anywhere. So I found no I I could not say I'm positive. Every every um biochemical research um collaboration of the time had um the goal of identifying some particular activities involved in um biological mechanism but it for the ones that I looked at and that worked it was an important part. >> Thanks. Yes. Thank you very much for your talk. Um I was curious about the uh the fourth case, the the one you don't present. You didn't present and I was curious whether you can tell us something more about that. But mostly for it's possible a relevance um concerning how it fits in your perspective on sharp peaking. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um two words about the project. So it was located in Prague. It was paid for by um a publisher that was not a scientist, a hobby scientist who was convinced that electricity is all we need to know to understand biology. um who was selling half of the newspapers um in in Bohemia, so was very rich, could hire a biologist um Nickelborn to work for him. And he had already collaborated with um a physicist called Dan Hartford. And Hartford was really happy to help out biologists. He would um be happy to make his instruments available to them to help them develop some techniques to identify the electric charge of dyes. And these dice would be would have been used to then um livingly died this these Daphnneia um organisms and highlight certain structures. And then they thought well if we know the electric charge of the dye we can then um conclude the electric charge of the the physiological structure and that tells us something about the the function of the structure. That was the the main idea and they were super happy that they were able to highlight um certain functionally already um recognizably um complete structures with um their dice and then they just did not get to the next step of what they now learn about the fact that this um this part was was highlighted. Um also it was always um in a way it was too complicated because they they would also know the exact um well it was funny factors um figuring in to to make this um this argument a proper argument and then they did not have a theoretical idea of what it could mean. Um and why was important for me to have this case? >> Yeah. So what kind of lesson can we draw from this failure in the context of your perspective on sharing? >> Yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah. Um so my point that I in the end explicit here is that it is super hard to pick cherries in a good way. Um it's it's it's an art and for me these cases were cherries to pick because they um but different in interesting ways and similar in interesting ways. So they um are all of them are instance in when people try to bring together the resources and skills from physics or chemistry and biology. Some of them were um done as a oneman show, others have been done um in groups. Um so this um case gave me the idea that you can happily collaborate as long as you have um maybe some starting idea of what you are after. Um but it it will get tricky to um to to to really interpret um to to to to come up with an experimental design and to interpret um um if you don't have an interfery. If you don't have an idea of what you're after, an entry or an activity that connects to a certain phys um biological phenomenon. Um so you don't have an entry point. Um so it in a way it made I think my argument stronger to say these were um for all of these cases um the interfield theories for the other for the um successful ones the interfield theories have been formulated in advance have been around um for a long time. So the conceptual link king was not the the the the most difficult part. The most difficult part was really to operationalize it and to find an organism um on which you could then do the experiment and to really have on all the techniques um also did the um synthesizing techniques, the isolating techniques um the the microchemistry that was needed in order to um to isolate the chemicals to get a foot into the mechanism. Um and it um did not happen here and it could not happen because there was no idea of what the interfered relation would be other than the really um the really sketchy um uncomplete one. So yeah, it was important for me to have a case where I find part of what I want to explain, part of the experiment, which was in for a long time a happy collaboration, but then one that did not produce any results and then for me the ability to be able to explain it was reassuring. Um, >> thank you. Um maybe it's maybe it's a related question but a sort of um so for me it's very clear how the philosophical framework of new mechanism although I don't understand it but it clearly that how that guided your your historical research not just the choice of the case studies but also the choice mostly right because if I understand correctly new mechanism is really about understanding uh biological sciences and neuroscience. So this uh those case studies also fit those uh um and but my question is uh sorry um how whether your case studies sort of push back in any way the theoretical framework sort of saying well this either because it doesn't fit completely or or sort of ways in which um >> yeah I don't know how to say it but whether the the the historical we study um sort of brought something new to the philosophical framework that was not there right because at the beginning you started with this idea that um both disciplines can thrive together and sort of the the ideal HPS iss that both both thrive together so this is a very clear case of how philosophy can make history thrive but maybe I didn't get it how how is how is history making philosophy thrive. Yeah. >> Is it is it sort of saying well look at this case studies this doesn't work like for example this case that you talk about systemism being rather a passive so it cannot be considered an activity. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So one of it is um an indication about the applicability of the concept. um which is when you look in the new mechanism literature and say well biology is about um mechanisms and then if someone tries to date it they would say at least since the second part of the 20th century and then I can say well look here 1920s and 30s it was really a natural thing um to think about in these terms about um your goals and your methods and what you need to do to achieve it that's I think just a good information for philosophers to have that their concept can be applied to these parts of um biological practice and history. Probably not all of it um but but there has been um work along these lines in the past. first. second um an um answer to well if we if we um assume that we need all kinds of um skills and resources in order to to get there. We need in either have people who can can use these skill these resources and have the skills or we need to be able to bring them on board and being interested in biological mechanisms. And that is a that is not something that new mechanism explains why um chemistry and physicists should be um interested in that. And I can give um an answer to that that goes um along the lines of well for um is in a way a methological um answer. These um chemists needed knowledge about the behavior of the overall system in order to to identify the the entities often violate activities they were interested in. Um and they also when they wanted to theorize about how certain substances um were synthesized in the organism or how they act in the organism, why what the characteristics these are all important theoretical questions in chemistry um they needed the biological system and the biologists um to find these answers. second point and then a third point was really for me maybe it's it's trivial and maybe it's not a concern but still just to to realize how much we in philosophy think from the end result back on the research pro process and not not the other way around >> and it makes sense I mean you have a goal you what you think you need to get there but in reality if you would ask don why was hacked um studying the mechanism of fish. She would say he was interested in explaining vision. And I would say well he was interested in doing good biology. He thought hard about what he can do and what he can do over the couple of weeks that he has in the summers when he goes to or um and so that was a constraint. So it was clear he wanted he needed to do something with marine um organisms. He knew about physical chemistry. He had mathematical skills. He knew no one else in my um group of peers can do that. It was a a safe and also a safe way to be original >> and um a good use of the specific skills he had. So I think he would have been similarly interested in smelling as well. Um but the reason why he chose to work on the mechanism of virtual reception was has all to do with his um contingent history >> um of his static background and his um resources and that's >> um it's just it's not curiositydriven project but then what can I what is my range of actions that I can do pragmatic opportunity driven project Um and so that would be my my remark also for the HBS community. So let's talk about what we as historians and philosophers can do what we what our skills is what the contingent material is. I mean it's it's really um contingent that I have the love notes effect and not of of someone else. But this is why I chose him as a cherry because it's a nice cherry that makes that a good case. Um nothing else. Um but I think with my um work I can give you reasons why I chose this particular um philosophical concept and the particular historical cases and it was not an easy decision you know some somehow it was but finding the cases and then really connecting everything it wasn't easy so I say well I I did of course cherrypick um but it was work and it's not something um that is bad but in I would um yeah my wish for us would be to say well let's pick pick cherries and pick pick the good ones >> um and really get into discussions on what is it that we now work on what are the problems that are interesting in philosophical science what are the problems in the um the resources we have in history and then find out how it could be >> you had exceptions archive. You have even these notes at university. This is this is exceptional. >> It's rare that we have so much so much information >> and it's easier in that time than it is in the 18th century where I work from now or it would be in reading recent history because then everyone well if you have access to your emails that's fine. >> Um but I would have letters I would have his lab notes I would have his applications. That was really fun >> that already also sort of guides the kind of questions the kind of philosophical framework that is relevant because if >> like for example I have some case studies where I'm not I have to do a lot of work to reconstruct what they were doing >> to even try to understand their their theoretical concepts. So I have much more stuff about their connection to political parties. So it's much more easy to go to a philosophical framework that that talks more about that and about the practices because I just don't have access to that >> also I mean there's a new mechanical philosophy there's another philosophical project which is to understand collaboration which is to understand interdisiplinarity um would say we need empirical cases we need historical cases um to to develop our philosophy of um interdisiplinarity So I think this is something I have to offer but it's it's never I think maybe not with philosophical and historical work per se but it's also especially not with HBS it's never the end of a problem solution endeavor just but maybe the next iteration of talking about it but yeah to come back to to what the the the feedback is to philosophy I think is these three points application explanation how the this is social implementation in a way of um the project and uh whether we really want to um look re reconstruct the the research practice um retrospectively and just to be um yeah just to know about that that we do it >> okay yeah >> yes um I have a a couple of questions regarding more the details of the cases specifically about this he work. Uh so you mentioned that when he was choosing the model organism one of the concerns was uh that it wouldn't be it would be something simple without you know uh too complex neurohysiology etc etc etc and then you mentioned like that you also worked on the plant photosensitivity but was uh there already some preceding work on plant photosensitivity and whether it was like was it important to work on animals or it was just his lab which was doing animal physiology. So they continue continuing to physiology. >> Thank you so much. Um yes the um the applicability of the law of transcope to organisms was first shown in plants in 1910 um by a person in Vienna and also this lab in. Um so that was clear and it was one of the poster achievements uh for the group of general physiologists. Um because then Chak Lulip who worked on um invertebrates could also show it for um for hydra um that they also have um photochemical reactions. Chaklip of course was really important for the whole political um I mean disciplinary politics um to um push for quantitative experimental biology in the US and it was a a great mentor for city um it was in that time at least people had also the people in working but also l they would say it's even the things we're after are probably the same in plants and animals. Um so we are interested in these processes on a very general level. So also that brings that is that makes it important to work on really simple animals. Um because then we have the most direct access to these fundamental processes. Um and it was a for a heck of course I think he was drawn to these photochemical systems because he wanted to associate himself with LI. Importantly he went one step further than Li whereas Li would just tell hey look how great I found a case where a a physical and physical chemical law applies to a biological process. Heck made use of that finding and said, "Well, it tells me something about the biological system because I think it tells me that there are certain substances that are part of that system." Um, he he in a way he filled that um finding with meaning and he would be able to do so because he knew more way more about physics and chemistry than did. >> But was he directly student of love or no? >> Okay. No, he was student of um Parker and he um only met L um after he did these experiments in La Hoya. Um Luke published um the journal uh Luke uh edited the journal um for general physiology which was the the the platform where um H published his first experiment here. Um and it was the second issue of the journal being founded and loop um yeah edited it together with um Oster and that was the the methodological um impetus for for for having this journalist to say we need to um promote this kind of research that is quantitative and experimental and takes into account physical chemistry. So it was a really nice fit and then um became a mentor of um of um Hector had a position in Omaha, Nebraska and and was very unhappy there because he had no persistent chemists to talk things over. He had no access to libraries and so on and then um L made sure that he would get an fellowship by the general education board and then was able to go to theological station in Naples for example. He also went to Cambridge. He wanted to go to um work with autoborg with Emilog first and also with ES4. Some of the plants which he realized are not but and eventually in like 10 years later he got a position as a biohysicist at Columbia University and Thomas from Oakland who was also in the team with Luke and Haj to um edit these um books. the the experimental biology monographs. Um he was the one that brought um he who made sure that there is a position for heck in that. So again a lot of social institutional things happening that has to do with methodological norms um and whether people are able to fulfill them. Can I point? So, um, concerning the I'm going back to the contribution that Max mentioned concerning history, contribution of history from from philosophy. Um you you I think you mention if I understood correctly uh that um a contribution from philosophy say look look at this case studies in which they already thought in a mechanistic way. Now this is I think contribution that you mention is correct. Uh but maybe we can push a bit this um I would like to know what you think about it because the new mechanis new mechanism uh the foundation was in in by the article by m 2000 >> yeah can also say 74 we can also say offman even earlier but No, because you you use nonetheless in your presentation you use engines and activities. So >> yeah. >> So and >> in my oral presentation I didn't show it explicitly on the but yeah >> okay. No because for me it's interesting because the context in which they proposed the mechanistic mechanistic explanation and definition of mechanism was at the molecular level using the neurotransmitter release. They were very into molecular biology but in your case you are you are kind of before mole whatever biology kind of 10 years before talking about 2020. So could be even more interesting to say it's kind of we have a mechanism thinking before new mechanistic philosophy because >> no what do you think because it's before so entities activities are referred to molecular stuff to molecular mechanisms or chon channel and calcium etc But you're talking about some thought before all this molecular biology uh description. So what what do you what do you think about about if you don't know why because it's true that we have to be we are to agree about the start the foundation of the mechanism philosophy so maybe this is but if we think about >> so I think that's maybe the cycle that I mentioned okay these philosophical concepts came from a study of the practice of a particular practice which was um for D and Crater of course um neurobiology and molecular biology and protein synthesis and so on. Um Makar works also on right >> what >> he has is also early modern >> yes yes he would >> he's a the cat schol before switching to philosoph so he would not be confined to mole biology probably he would also be happy to defend that there was um mechanistic thinking in the 18th century and before um Bectal used um work on vitamins in the 1930s also when he developed um his framework. So I think not from the beginning it was not only neuro physiology and um protein synthesis that was the the the material that has been studied in order to develop it. But of course all I would say the the philosophers of science who are thinking about scientific practice, they always also have a particular um field in mind or are best um versed in a particular um field and then maybe what they come up with is um influenced by the the particularities of that particular field. And then it's it's all the more interesting to take such a concept and take it into other contexts and see whether they apply. Um and then historically many of the things that the people did that I studied then would then become what people later called um molecular biology. Um it is a bit of a retrospectic misconception that molecular biology was always about genetics and about um molecular genetics. So these these vitamin and hormone studies and how they act that would also be counted as a molecular biology in the um early 1940s for example. So maybe it even helps us to readjust a bit our um idea of Yeah. or It just shows the prehistory of um molecular biology and how natural it was for these people to I would say to think about activities and therapies or components and operations. Um but of course that's that's one way why I think or and I put it another way the people who both do HBS are probably in my view the people who are interested in research practice and that could be the the philosophers and that part of philosophy you really want to understand what is going on in science and that could be either by them assessing science as it is now and maybe using so logical methods or just their impression um or they look at historical episodes um and this is the the meeting around. Um, and so there's in my view always this necessary cycle of developing something by studying a particular field or a particular phenomenon in science, abstracting from it and come up with the general philosophical idea and then take it as we take models in the sciences and try to apply them to somewhere else and see what happens. And maybe there's interesting feedback again for for the for the >> Yeah, I have I follow up on this. No, no, no. >> Yeah, it's just a short follow up on this topic. So, um you mentioned that uh maybe I didn't just understand it that there is this historaphical narrative linking the origin of molecular biology to the activity of the Rockefeller Institute and Rockefeller Foundation. The all this work is before that, right? or or is it at least independent from it? >> Everything started before the Rockefellers decided to um but some of them of course got money and also the Rockefellers foundation already paid in 20s for this general education >> bought fellowships to send people um >> and was it already this sort of physical chemical? Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. Already some line of work that they would um help to fund. Yeah. But I would not support the view that this is like the beginning point of people thinking about how that they should integrate um physics and chemistry into biology. I think there was an independent need felt by the activists themselves um independent of the the defining structure. >> Well, okay. one it's it's kind of a beer question. So, so we I do it then maybe you want to answer then we >> but so it's out it's it's sort of related but it's outside the talk but it's something I'm struggling with and um which is at the beginning you you start with the sort of potential HPS uh tensions and and and sort of benefits uh and the last one is about the disciplinary standards that it's hard to adhere to both and and you you see the specifically the sort of local contextual thingy grounded sources and so on versus the clear and simple and that's always a struggle when especially when you have to present in in 15 or 20 minutes how much detail you want to go on and so on. Another maybe obvious disciplinary standard that that is difficult to bridge because everyone gets mad is is the normative component. Um so so historians don't do that. They don't like doing that. >> Yeah. >> They don't like people doing that. and and and philosophers well we had discussion about whether sort of the normative all all philosophy is normative or whether it's sort of essential to discipline or not people have ideas in this room about that um but for me at least it is why I don't say philosophy is the normative component not just doing the evaluation but at least thinking about sort of okay what are the normative components in here what are the norms guiding research and what so uh I don't know if there's some normative component in your work or not? Uh and how how do you deal with that? >> Yeah, >> if at all. >> Yeah, sure. Thank you. Um let me preface this by saying of course there's a reason why I'm interested in science and philosophy of science and history of science. Um and that has to do with Yeah. Um but then for the most time I can just say normative standards for me are interesting in so far as they have been important for the historical actors and that I would say no historian can take from me that when occasionally when people think about what they do they think about h how the thing that they want to achieve needs to be achieved. Certainly when you are a postto starting your new project, you want to do good work. You want to make yourself a name. You have to really think hard about how to use the little resources that you have effectively. So this is why I think for every historical description of what happened, normative ideas of how you should do your work are always an necessary component. Now a historian can say well still for that I don't need philosophers to tell me what these um norms are and for me it's it's more a thing um that has to do uh that is similar to this uh relation of hack and the photochemists. For me it was easy to say well there has been people that had thinking been thinking hard for a couple of decades about how the goal of finding mechanisms was achieved and how that um what the logical um connections of that are to to to research practice. So why not just take their work and um test them in a way for for my um cases. So let's let me rely on the experts um who are really trained in finding finding um the the consequences of particular um characterizations. And so for me as a historian necessarily I need to talk about norms. I can always say it's not me who decides whether I was good science. It's really it's also not my first interest to do to say oh um this PR people were bad scientists but I do want to understand why in their view and the the view of their peers they were not successful or the other ones were so happy to say we have achieved so much within so little time. um that is something that I think historians should be able to explain and I think they need to um refer to the norms of the of their study objects and then for me philosophy is a good resource to to to inform myself about norms always with the option that this would not help me to understand the historical um events but maybe it does and if it does not it also is um maybe an interesting learning for us. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Okay. Great. Thanks. Okay. And I think we close.