The Evolutionary Dimension of Scientific Progress

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers problems that the biologically based general theory of evolution is facing today when it is extrapolated to the problem of scientific progress. It investigates how scientific theories can be interpreted as replacing each other, about what the external environment of scientific communication is, what institutions are responsible for the selection of the best theories, and the extent to which the autonomous mechanisms of scientific evolution are differentiated, namely, the mechanisms of random variation, natural selection, and inheritance. The authors deploy David Hull’s concept of causal individuation and Stephen Gould’s concept of semantic individuation, identifying the possibilities of reconciliation and synthesis of these evolutionary approaches. The authors use ‘a complex multidimensional environment of scientific communication’, formed by the social, factual, and time dimensions of scientific communication. This concept ‘removes’ the distinction between local and global optima and, consequently, eliminates the difference between problem-solving and semantic understandings of scientific progress. It concludes that understanding the scientist’s consciousness as a ‘case-sorting machine’ eliminates the apparent inconsistency of the evolutionary metaphor and ‘saves the evolutionary analogy’, substantiating the independence of the mechanism of random variations from the mechanisms of natural selection and stabilization of knowledge at the population level.