Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

I. Research Programmes and Criteria for Cognitive Success: Some Views from Recent Philosophy of Science.- 1. Popper’s view on scientific progress.- A. Popper’s three requirements for a successful theory transition.- B. The epistemological adequacy of Popper’s requirements.- 1. Verisimilitude.- 2. Prospects of support from verisimilitude considerations.- C. The descriptive adequacy of Popper’s requirements.- D. Conclusion.- 2. What counts as a proper prediction?.- 3. Lakatos’s view on scientific development: research programmes.- 4. Criteria for a successful research programme.- A. Popper’s requirements translated into the research programmes terminology.- 1. Translation of the second and third requirement.- 2. Impact of Popper’s first requirement upon the translations obtained.- B. A scale of criteria for successful research programmes.- C. Mapping various criteria proposed in the literature into our scale.- 1. Lakatos.- 2. Zahar.- 3. Worrall.- 4. Musgrave.- 5. Laudan.- 6. Kuhn.- D. Who is right?.- 5. Guide to the next chapters.- II. The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Experiment: The Birth of a New Research Programme.- 1. The prehistory of the nmr experiment.- 2. The nmr experiment and its underlying theory.- A. Experimental setup and theory of the nmr experiment.- B. The intended use of the nmr experiment.- C. Comparison with the mbmr experiment.- 3. Global significance of the nmr experiment: the birth of a new research programme.- 4. Local significance of the first nmr experiments: disconfirming the prevailing theory of the nmr phenomenon.- A. The 1945 theory of the nmr phenomenon and its performance.- 1. Spin-lattice relaxation time.- 2. Resonance line width.- B. Concluding remarks.- 5. Gorter’s bad luck, or why he did not win a Nobel prize.- A. Gorter’s first attempt to detect the nmr phenomenon.- B. Conclusions.- C. Gorter’s advice to Rabi.- D. Gorter’s second attempt to detect the nmr phenomenon.- III. Lakatos’s Theory and the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Conceptual Adequacy of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The descriptive claims connected with Lakatos’s theory of scientific development.- A. Preliminaries and definitions.- B. Descriptive claims.- 2. The nmr programme and the conceptual adequacy of Lakatos’s theory.- A. The development of the nmr programme: preliminary sketch.- B. Characterization of the nmr programme in Lakatosian terms.- 3. A first modification of Lakatos’s theory.- A. Disconfirming claim 2.- B. Repair of claim 2.- C. Impact on the rest of Lakatos’s theory.- IV. The Development of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Explanatory Failure of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The BPP theory of nuclear magnetic relaxation; its Lakatosian merits; and some methodological problems encountered in establishing such merits.- A. The BPP theory and its problem situation.- B. Explanatory merits with respect to the anomalies of the problem situation.- C. Predictive merits of some further consequences of the BPP theory; a first methodological problem.- D. Predictive merits of still other consequences of “the BPP theory”: two further methodological problems.- E. The BPP programmita.- F. Conclusions.- 2. Line shapes in solids.- A. Dipolar line broadenings.- B. Nuclear electric quadrupole splitting.- 3. Nmr phenomena in metals.- A. The Knight shift and its theoretical explanation.- B. Spin-lattice relaxation in metals, and Korringa’s relation.- C. Intermezzo: an application of the concepts from chapter I.- D. Conclusions.- 4. The chemical shift.- A. The phenomenon of chemical shift and Lamb’s formula.- B. Ramsey’s 1950 theory of the chemical shift.- C. Explanatory and predictive merits of Ramsey’s 1950 theory.- D. Ramsey’s 1952 elaborations of his theory of the chemical shift.- 1. Gauge transformation of the 1950 theory.- 2. Accounting for temperature dependence.- E. Examples of later developments of the chemical shift programmita.- 1. Interpretation of fluorine shifts.- 2. Interpretation of proton shifts in aromatic compounds.- F. Conclusions.- 5. A shift in liquids due to paramagnetic ions.- A. The phenomenon and the theory that explains it.- B. Significance for Lakatos’s theory.- 6. The hyper fine splitting.- A. The occurrence of unusual multiplet structures in liquids.- B. The formulation of the empirical regularity of hyperfine splitting and the search for its theoretical explanation.- 1. Gutowsky.- 2. Hahn.- C. The successful explanation of the new phenomenon.- D. Later developments of the hyperfine programmita.- E. Conclusions.- 1. Stages of theory formation.- 2. Evaluation of the development in terms of the scale of chapter I.- 7. Remarks on later developments of the nmr programme.- 8. Conclusions.- A. Evaluation of claim 3’.- 1. Coarse grating picture of the nmr programme.- 2. Finer grating picture of the nmr programme.- B. Evaluation of claim 3a.- C. Kuhn’s theory or Laudan’s is not the answer.- D. How to proceed next.- V. Theories from the Nmr Programme as Theories of Measurement: Resolving the Anomaly.- 1. Nmr theories as theories of measurement.- A. Examples.- 1. Chemical shifts and the structure of molecules.- 2. Line shapes in solids and the structure of crystals.- 3. Temperature dependent chemical shifts and chemical equilibria.- 4. Spin-lattice relaxation and dynamical molecular processes.- B. The logical structure of theory application.- 1. The HD and RD schemes of scientific reasoning.- 2. Analysis of the examples.- 3. Conclusion.- 2. The phenomena being observed in applying theories of nmr belong to other domains.- 3. The dependence of the nmr programme on extrinsic success.- A. Resolving the explicit anomalies collected in IV.8.- 1. Nmr programme as a degenerating, though actually successful research programme.- 2. Lack of correlation between the actual success of nmr programmita’s and their ratings on the scale of intrinsic success.- B. Some implications.- C. A remark for chemists and physicists.- D. Guide to the remaining chapters.- VI. The Structure of Theory Development: The Nmr Programme Seen from the Structuralist Perspective.- 1. The structuralist perspective on “normal science”.- A. The notion of a theory net.- B. Conditions of adequacy to be imposed on a net representing an actual piece of science.- 2. The theory net representing the nmr programme.- 3. The nature of the elaboration relation 190.- A. Reflections on the structure of the basic theory of nmr.- B. A particular claim on the E-relation entertained within the structuralist conception.- C. The E-relation in the net representing the nmr programme.- D. Implications for the structuralist programme 201 4. Elucidation of the “conceptual” terms of Lakatos’s theory.- 4. Elucidation of the “conceptual” terms of Lakatos’s theory.- VII. Intrinsic Success and Extrinsic Success of Research Programmes; A Model of Scientific Development Unifying the Approaches of Lakatos and the Starnberg School.- 1. External influentiability according to the Starnberg school; two successive models.- A. The alternatives model.- B. The finalization model.- 2. The limitations of Lakatos’s model and of the Starnberg finalization model.- A. The finalization model reveals a restriction in the scope of Lakatos’s theory.- B. The scope of the finalization model is restricted as well; two types of external influence.- C. The difference in emphasis between the work of the Starnberg school and the present study.- D. Development of the Starnberg programme after 1973.- 3. Intrinsic success and extrinsic success of research programmes.- A. The two aims of science.- B. The IES model of scientific development.- C. Relationship of IES model with Lakatos’s model and the Starnberg finalization model.- D. The nmr programme and the IES model.- E. Other plausible examples from recent physics and chemistry for the IES model.- 1. Photoelectron spectroscopy.- 2. Quantum chemistry.- 3. Molecular dynamics.- F. Implications of the IES model: the CD model of the cognitive structure of interdisciplinary research.- G. Relevance for other research on the development of science.- 1. The Starnberg programme revisited.- 2. Some links with research within philosophy of science.- 3. Specialty studies within sociology of science.- 4. Links with the views of the physicists: Weisskopf, Casimir, Weinberg.- A. Weisskopf on intensive and extensive developments in 20th century physics.- 1. Weisskopf’s view.- 2. Links with IES model.- B. Casimir on the stages of development of physical theories.- 1. Casimir’s view.- 2. Links with IES model.- C. Weinberg’s criteria for scientific choice.- 1. Weinberg’s emphasis on the extrinsic aim of science.- 2. Rehabilitation of the intrinsic aim by the Physics Survey Committee.- 3. Merits of the IES model: an illustration.- 4. Intensivists versus extensivists.- D. Concluding remarks on the relevance of the IES model for science policy issues.- Notes.- Index of Names.