RESPONSES

New Insights into the Nature of Science: What Does

Hull's Evolutionary Epistemology Teach Us?'

WILLIAM BECHTEL

Department of Philosophy
GeorgiaState University

Having tried myself on a couple occasions to employ an evolutionary perspective to

understand scientific development (Bechtel, 1984, 1987), became rather skeptical of
its utility. My skepticism was not due to the objections of the critics of evolutionary
epistemology to the effect that the differences between biological evolution and the
development of science are sufficiently great to undercut any useful comparison. The
existence of differences does not negate the value of an analogy for the details of one
process do not have to be exactly the same as those of another for us to gain insights about
one from the other. Rather, I have become disillusioned because the comparison did not
seem to yield fruitful results. I was not learning more about science by comparing it to
biological evolution.
When a technique fails to produce results, the problem may not be due to the technique;
it may be that the user does not know how to use the technique most effectively. If anyone
is accomplished in using the evolutionary perspective to study processes in science, it is
David Hull. He has attempted systematically to apply an evolutionary perspective to
particular episodes in the development of science and has carried out the enterprise in far
greater detail than anyone else. What we see in the target article are some of the fruits of
that endeavor - insights into the character of science that stem from his attempt to
understand science by viewing it from an evolutionary perspective.2 Hull has identified
characteristics of the development of science that have been overlooked by theorists who
have not adopted the evolutionary perspective. This gives me new reason to take the
analogy seriously. In what follows I will discuss, from the perspective of my recent work on
the history of biochemistry and cell biology, some further dimensions of these charac-
teristics of science to which Hull has drawn our attention.

1. THE ROLE OF SCIENTISTS AS INTERACTORS

Hull presents his evolutionary account in terms of four concepts: interactor, replicator,
selection, and lineage. Lineages are produced by selection differentially extinguishing and
promoting interactors, which causes the differential proliferation of replicators. When he
applies this framework to science, Hull construes the replicators as the "elements of the
substantive content of science - beliefs about the goals of science, the proper ways to go
about realizing these goals, problems and their possible solutions, modes of representation,
accumulated data reports, and so on" (p. 140). Although like Hull I will use the term
"ideas" to stand for this class of entities, it should be emphasized that Hull includes far
more than scientific hypotheses and theories, the usual focus of discussions in philosophy
of science. When one examines the modes of transmission in science (e.g., book chapters

Biology and Philosophy 3 (1988) 157-164.

C 1988 by KluwerAcademic Publishers.
158 WILLIAM BECHTEL

and journal articles, presentations and posters at professional meetings, and laboratory
experiences as graduate student or post-doctoral fellow), one sees that a major part of what
is transmitted are things other than hypotheses or theories. Far more resources seem to be
devoted to transmitting such things as experimental techniques and ways of writing papers
and proposals, which is a measure of the importance of these to the scientific process.
Hull presents scientists as the interactors in the scientific prcess: "Scientists are the ones
who notice problems, think up possible solutions, and attempt to test them. They are the
primary interactors in scientific change" (p. 140). Given the earlier scheme, then, selection
is a process of differential extinction and proliferation of scientists that causes the differen-
tial perpetuation of the scientific ideas which results in lineages.3 The lineages are in the
first place lineages of ideas and, in the second place, lineages of scientists.
An intriguing issue not discussed by Hull is the nature of the selection process and how
scientists as interactors encounter selection forces. In more traditional accounts of evolu-
tionary epistemology (e.g., Campbell, 1974a; Popper, 1972), selection forces are viewed as
working directly on ideas, promoting those that are successful in solving problems and
extinguishing those that fail.4 By noting the role of the scientist as interactor, Hull leads us
to consider more thoroughly how the selection process takes place. For his own part, Hull
emphasizes testing of ideas as one of the critical functions played by scientists. While
clearly this is an important activity of scientists, there are other activities which scientists
perform as interactors that maybe as important in determining the extinction or proli-
feration of scientists and thereby selection for or against a scientific idea.
Let us consider some of the factors that result in the differential extinction or prolifera-
tion of a scientist. Insofar as a scientist is viewed primarily as the interactor through which
ideas face selection forces, the scientist is extinguished if he or she is no longer able to
influence other scientists. This means that if a scientist is not able to teach students or get
papers published in appropriate journals, then, even if the scientist continues to carry
out investigations and makes major discoveries, he or she is largely extinguished as an
interactor. 5 In order to continue to have students and publish in journals it is not sufficient
to have new ideas, even true or good ideas. It is critical for the scientist to retain sufficient
peer respect. Within a department this is necessary in order to retain an academic position
and secure necessary laboratory space. In you lack such peer respect, students (and
especially post-doctoral fellows) are unlikely to become interested in working with you. In
contemporary science, securing grant support is a critical element in maintaining a suc-
cessful research program and since grants are refereed by peers, lack of peer respect can
eliminate the possibility of securing grants.
While peer respect is necessary to avoid extinction, if we are to understand how
scientists function as interactors, we need to determine more precisely what is involved in
maintaining peer respect. It does not require having your peers agree with you. One
scientist whose career I am currently examining, the biochemist David Green, was very
successful for three decades in generating funding and attracting high calibre post doc-
torate students to his laboratory at the Enzyme Institute of the University of Wisconsin.
This was not because his peers (e.g., Albert Lehninger, Britton Chance, E. Racker) agreed
with him. In fact, Green's views and the results coming from his laboratory were almost
always controversial and were almost always challenged and often proved wrong by others.
Some of those close to Green have related to me how bitterly his peers attacked his ideas
at professional meetings through the years while he continued to received grants and
post-doctoral students. What seems to have been important is that Green advanced
interesting ideas and had the personality to present and defend them forcefully and this led
his peers to take him seriously. This changed in the last decade of his life as he lost peer
respect and as a result his grant support diminished dramatically and he was able to
support fewer post doctoral fellows. The difference is that during the 1950s and 1960s his
peers took his work sufficiently seriously to criticize it but by the 1970s they ceased to do
so and the critical peer respect was lost.
 WHAT DOES HULL TEACH US? 159

While it is not necessary to convince your peers in order to maintain their respect, it is
necessary that they regard your contributions seriously. This involves, in part, making
contributions that are plausible according to the prevailing ideas of the field and employing
research strategies that have credibility. But it also involves a variety of other factors.
Having made important contributions in the past secures some prima facie credibility for
your current work. This was an extremely critical factor for David Green. During the
1930s he had been a graduate student and subsequently Beit Memorial Fellow in Malcolm
Dixon's laboratory at Cambridge. He had made significant contributions in isolating
enzymes involved in biological oxidation. When he returned to the United States in 1940,
he brought with him credibility as having been part of the new generation of biochemists
that were isolating the critical respiratory enzymes. While he was far less adept in the
research techniques that became central in the quarter century after 1945, the luster of his
previous record helped him maintain respect amongst his peers.
So far I have focused primarily on factors that can cause extinction or ways to avoid
extinction. But for an entity to deal successfully with the selection process it is necessary
for it to proliferate. What factors lead to a scientist proliferating? Developing theoretical
hypotheses clearly helps. But other contributions can also be helpful. In disciplines like
biochemistry and cell biology, clearly one of the greatest contributions a scientist can make
in order to extend his or her influence is to develop a new technique or procedure that is
useful in addressing a pressing question. By showing that the electron microscope could be
used to look at cells, and subsequently developing techniques for sectioning cells so that
they could be viewed in thin section, for example, Keith Porter established for himself a
major position of influence in the emerging field of cell biology. Similarly, Albert Claude's
refinement of cell fractionation techniques and Britton Chance's introduction of spectro-
photometric techniques provided them with established positions in biochemistry and cell
biology.
Another factor in successful proliferation in science is being able to communicate your
contributions effectively and creating channels for such communication. Especially when a
scientists is pioneering in a new area he or she will find old forums for communication
blocked. One way around this is to develop new societies and new journals. This requires
major investments of labor, but the payoffs can be a valuable channel for promoting your
ideas. Keith Porter, for example, invested heavily in the 1950s in the creation of the
Journal of Biophysical and Biochemical Cytology and the Society for Cell Biology, one
reward for which is that he remains very influential in communicating his ideas in cell
biology.
I have focused on these factors affecting successful interaction in science because they
are quite different than those usually considered by philosophers of science or scientists
themselves who focus nearly exclusively on the introduction and testing of new hypotheses.
Philosophers like Laudan (1977) have expanded their focus somewhat to consider how
well an idea coheres with other theoretical ideas. But one of the things that is distinctive
about Hull's account is that it puts the scientist in a central position in explaining the
success of ideas. This helps us get beyond the misleading suggestion that ideas themselves
are what are directly selected and allows us to focus on ways in which scientists themselves
influence the process. Here is the kind of insight an evolutionary perspective on science
can offer that indicates its utility in helping us better understand science.
There are a couple other important factors concerning the role of scientists as inter-
actors. Hull characterizes the activities of scientists primarily in terms of noticing problems,
thinking up solutions, and testing them. This emphasizes the cerebral activities of scientists
and reduces their experimental activities to tools for testing the ideas that are thought up.
In some disciplines, however, the process of developing theoretical ideas is much more
interactive. Experimental inquiries play a major role in developing scientific hypotheses. 6
The modern discipline of cell biology emerged in the years after World War II primarily as
a result of new experimental techniques such as cell fractionation and electron microscopy
160 WILLIAM BECHTEL

which enabled investigators to pose new questions and develop new causal models partly
guided by the results of these investigations.
Emphasizing this mode of interaction of scientists with their environment in the course
of developing their scientific ideas would seem to count against one view of evolutionary
epistemology according to which scientists blindly put forward ideas and then select
amongst the ideas on the basis of experiments. The important role of the problems solving
context in shaping a scientist's thinking is perhaps part of the reason some people have
argued that scientific development is Lamarckian, not Darwinian. The ideas of the scientist
are not random, but are guided by the scientist's awareness of the problems to be answered
and the investigations the scientist carries out. But recognizing this role the environment
plays in the development of the scientist's ideas does not undercut the kind of evolutionary
view but forward by Hull.
Hull explicitly answers the literal objection of being Lamarckian by noting that the
ideas that the scientists develop on the basis of their encounters are the analogues of genes,
not of traits. Hence he is not committed to the inheritance of acquired traits or charac-
teristics. There is, however, a more fundamental objection that these critics have in mind,
though. It is that if ideas are developed in order to solve particular problems and are
guided by empirical information, then it is this intentional, problem solving activities of the
scientist and not selection that plays the primary role fixing the direction of science (see
Amundson, 1987, for a clear statement of this challenge). But Hull has already drawn our
attention to the features of science in terms of which we can answer this objection as well:
having a correct solution to a problem is not sufficient for getting your ideas accepted. You
must also manage to convince others and it is here that selection forces are at work. Those
scientists who proliferate as interactors are able to get their ideas accepted so that the ideas
can in turn proliferate. Thus, even if the thinking of individual scientists does not always or
even frequently exemplify a pattern of random variation and selective retention, what Hull
has shown us is that selection still plays a pivotal role in the development of science.
One provocative, but I think misleading element in Hull's response to the Lamarckian
challenge is his attempt to minimize the importance of intentionality for science by pointing
to the low success ratio of scientists:

If scientists did not strive to solve problems, the frequency with which they succeed
would no doubt decrease, but it is already so low that the differences would be difficult
to discern. All scientists are constantly striving to solve problems. Few do. Of those
who do, only a few are noticed. There may well be a difference in kind between
intentional and non-intentional behavior, but it is not a difference in kind that results in
much of a difference in degree" (p. 146).

While I agree with Hull that intentionality does not constitute a fundamental disanalogy
between the two processes, I am troubled by several aspects of this passage. The first is the
suggestion that only successful problem resolutions are significant for the advance of
science. Often what is discovered by those who fail ultimately to solve a problem is itself
critical to the final solution of the problem. Many biochemists tried to explain the linkage
between oxidation and phosphorylation before Mitchell's solution gained wide acceptance.
The fact that Lehninger, Chance, Green, and others did not solve the problem does not
mean that they did not make major contributions to the developing knowledge of the
biochemical processes involved in mitochondria. If we are to understand the process of
science as carried out in social structures, we need to revise our standards of what counts
as a contribution to the process of science. While some scientists recognize that the
problem on which they are working and believe themselves to have the capacity to solve
the problem (and so it is said of some Nobel Laureates that they set out to capture the
prize), vast numbers of scientists are not so deluded. They recognize that the problems
 WHAT DOES HULL TEACH US? 161

they address are far more modest as will be the contributions they will make. This,
however, does not render their endeavors inconsequential for the process of science.
Granted that the work of many scientists will not be noticed and will not figure in major
developments, still, more work than we may at first suspect does play an important role.
Looking with historical hindsight, we may fail to notice these contributions. Some of the
papers resulting from these inquiries are cited in the reference lists of the few papers that
do have impact and continue to be read by philosophers and historians, but as philoso-
phers doing history of science, we may overlook them since we no longer know who the
authors were or their relation to the author of the paper to which we do attend. (1, at least,
have been guilty of this.) One way to appreciate the multitude of contributors to the
research endeavors of a given discipline is to examine review articles (such as those
published in the Annual Reviews volumes for particular disciplines). Here you typically
finds references to the work of a much larger segment of the research community involved
in a discipline than will ever make it into the historical account of the period.
Review papers in a discipline can, in fact, be seen as points where major selection is
occurring. Authors of reviews must select amongst all the published papers on a given
topic over the past few years those that are important enough to mention in a review. (Of
course, factors other than the merits of the paper affect what papers get cited in a review.
Authors of review papers may use a variety of principles to select what papers to note.
They may mention the paper of a young researcher just so as to advance that person's
career, or because that person was their student. Even when these supposedly non-scientific
considerations figure, however, there is still selection at work and it is the kind of factor we
need to take into account if we are to understand the development of science.) Review
articles, in fact, serve an important selection function of identifying what amongst all the
published work of the period has sufficient importance that it needs to be considered by
other investigators. For those of us trying to understand how science works, the large
number of papers that are reviewed in such papers gives us some indication of the range of
publications that are judged at the time to be of some significance and which may have
contributed to the problem solving endeavors of other scientists.7
Another way to recognize the existence of research that impacts on the development of
science even if it does not generally make it to the attention of philosophical commentators
is to eavesdrop on discussions between scientists, for instance, after colloquia discussions.
A not infrequent activity is for one investigator to relate to another the findings of yet
other investigators working in the same basic area. Just because, as outsiders, we typically
notice only the most major developments in a particular field does not mean that there is
not a lot of important work carried on by lesser luminaries. In characterizing their work as
important I am not claiming that their results were correct, but that their work had effects
on the work of other scientists and their ideas were replicated. To investigate this phe-
nomenon further, of course, we need to attend at a more micro-level to the actual workings
of a scientific community.

2. INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SCIENTISTS

In the first portion of his paper Hull focuses our attention on the interactions between
scientists and addresses the question of why scientists adhere to prohibitions such as those
against publishing fraudulent or poorly prepared data and against falsely taking credit for
the work of others. He explains this in terms of scientists seeking to increase their inclusive
fitness:

Just as organisms behave in ways which result in replicates of their own genes or
duplicates of these genes in close kin being transmitted to later generations, scientists
162 WILLIAM BECHTEL

behave in ways calculated to get their views accepted as their views by other scientists,
in particular those scientists working on problems most closely associated with their
own (p. 128)

Before considering how the quest to maximize inclusive fitness leads to these prohibitions,
the notion of inclusive fitness needs clarification: How does inclusive fitness differ from
fitness more narrowly construed and why is it the relevant consideration? Promoting
inclusive fitness does not mean promoting ideas identical or nearly identical to your own. It
is often those most similar to your own that are your most serious competitors and against
which you struggle most.
This is exemplified by the fights between scientists over names.8 Naming an entity is
one way to mark your idea of that entity. Letting someone else's name be attached to the
same entity may signify that you have lost out to someone else. A clear example of this is
provided by the battle between Keith Porter (Porter, 1961) and various French investi-
gators (see Haguenau, 1958) over the names endoplasmic reticulum and ergastoplasm. The
term ergastoplasm was coined by Garnier in the late 19th century for a basophilic com-
ponent of the cell. This structure did not attract much attention until after World War II
when, with the electron microscope, Porter identified what looked like a reticular structure
in the basophilic part of the cell. Porter coined the new name endoplasmic reticulum
(Porter and Kallman, 1952), while the French insisted on the old term ergastoplasm and
maintained that Garnier's account of this structure was basically correct. Other scientists
with competing ideas as to the nature of this structure, such as Fritiof Sjostrand (1956),
also objected to the term endoplasmic reticulum and offered names of their own. Porter
and his colleagues were willing to admit at various points during the 1950s that the term
endoplasmic reticulum might not provide a correct description of the body, but they clung
to the new name. The name represented their claim on the cellular structure.
What this suggests is that what is important for inclusive fitness to come into play is not
just that another scientist has fundamentally the same idea, but that the ideas share a
common lineage. What it means for a scientist to promote his or her inclusive fitness
means, then, is for the scientist to promote the work of other scientists who are developing
ideas with the same heritage. To some philosophers, the notion that the origin of an idea
might matter in whether a scientist would promote it might seem irrational. Don't scientists
promote true ideas wherever they occur? And if they fail to do so, is that simply a sign of
their frailty? What Hull is suggesting here, if my explication of his view is right, is a quite
different perspective on the nature of scientific inquiry. The origin of an idea is critical for
how or whether it gets accepted. Here evolutionary epistemology alerts us to a phenomenon
(if correct) that we might not have considered otherwise.
When Hull uses the perspective of maximizing inclusive fitness to explain scientists'
behavior in accepting prohibitions against publishing fraudulent or inadequately supported
data, he focuses on the negative consequences to a scientist who has relied on fraudulent
or poor data. These negative consequences explain why science has developed powerful
prohibition operating against publishing such data. Provisionally accepting Hull's account, I
want to draw attention to the fact that Hull, in attending to the selective advantage or
disadvantage of certain modes of behavior, is offering what Mayr (1982) would term an
"ultimate explanation." Even if such an ultimate explanation is accepted, however, the
question arises about the nature of the proximate mechanisms that provide for adherence
to and enforcement of these proscriptions. There is a danger to ignoring the proximate
causes. Hull notes that scientists need not be aware of the real reasons for their actions,
and are probably better off when they are not aware of them (although some scientists
undoubtedly plot their strategy with regard to whom they cite, etc.). But by omitting any
account of proximate mechanisms, Hull's account leaves one with the impression that
scientists are generally plotting their own inclusive fitness.'
When we seek to identify the proximal causes that affect scientists decisions about
 WHAT DOES HULL TEACH US? 163

publishing data and citing other investigators, one thing that needs examination is the
process by which scientists are brought into the culture of science. What kinds
of things are
expected of them in their graduate and post-doctoral research and how
do these expecta-
tions become internalized so as to operate in a non-conscious manner in their later
career?
Expectations undoubtedly vary from discipline to discipline and from laboratory
to labora-
tory. In some laboratories the emphasis may be so much on results that
young researchers
are taught to rush forward with any potentially positive result. Other laboratories
will be
more cautious or not push young investigators into producing instant results.
Some of these
characteristics undoubtedly become directly inculcated into these
investigators and will
guide their behavior once they are on their own. Laboratories, however, are
not totally
autonomous in the characteristics they inculcate. Journals, by their standards and
modes of
refereeing, also shape the behavior of individual scientists. Referees or editors
may, for
example, suggest earlier work, including their own, that should be cited or require
further
substantiating data or measures be employed before results are published.
There is much
to learn about these proximal factors governing scientist's behavior. It
is once again to
Hull's credit, and a mark of the usefulness of the evolutionary perspective,
though, that he
has focused philosophical attention on this aspect of science.

3. CONCLUSION

My endeavor in this commentary has been principally to expand and amplify

some aspects
of Hull's discussion in light of my work on the history of science. Hull has
illuminated for
us a number of important features of scientific investigation which philosophers
have
previously largely ignored. Some philosophers may object that some of the considerations
I
have raised here, as well as those raised by Hull, are merely sociological factors, and
so not
things of interest to philosophers, whose attention should be confined to epistemological
factors. It is one of the great contributions of Hull to have elucidated some of the
factors
that go into actual science. If science does yield true or highly reliable
results, then these
mechanisms become important because it is through them that science operates.
Moreover,
if we are to develop epistemological accounts that explain how science
does yield true or
highly reliable results, then we need to understand how these mechanisms operate
in
science and how through them science is able to achieve. By adopting the
explanatory
framework of evolutionary theory, Hull has shed light on these factors,
and that is a major
contribution.

NOTES

I This paper was prepared while I was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Philosophy of
Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I am most grateful to both the
Center for its
support and to Georgia State University for providing me a leave of absence.
2 Hull's perspective and mine are somewhat different. Hull does not view himself as
reasoning analogically by comparing conceptual development to biological
evolution.
Rather, he is attempting to develop a general evolutionary perspective that
will apply not
only to the evolution of organisms, but also to immunology and epistemology.
His quest is
for laws of conceptual evolution, not just insights into the processes that operate
in the
development of science. Hull's endeavor, thus, is far more ambitious. But if any
endeavor is
to provide insights into the processes that operate in the development of
science, it would
be one that sought the laws operating in the domain. Hence, while the
fact that I am
focusing only on analogical understanding distinguishes my endeavor from
Hull's, any
results he achieves will satisfy my goals as well.
In characterizing the general evolutionary process (p. 134), Hull spoke of the replicators
164 WILLIAM BECHTEL

as producing the interactors. It would be a useful enterprise to detail how ideas produce
scientists. It is clear that the behavior of the scientist is governed extensively by the ideas
that he or she acquires in the course of training and the opportunities the scientist has to
acquire new research techniques. Moreover, it is probably the rare scientist who began his
or her career with clear foresight of the problems he or she would pursue. This is probably
extensively influenced by the various mentors the scientist encounters, and this may itself
be very chance-like.
4 In fairness, Campbell and Popper were using the evolutionary model to account for the
thinking of individual scientists, where the scientist would try out ideas mentally and reject
those that fail to meet certain standards of adequacy. Hull's contribution, in part, is to show
us that there may be a far more fruitful way to apply the analogy.
5 A scientist does not have to be successful in all modes of interaction to be a successful
interactor. Otto Warburg, for example, choose to allow very few scientists into his labora-
tory, and yet he was very successful.
6 This does not reduce scientific theories to mere empirical generalization. For example, in

developing an account of a causal process, the theorist needs to put forward a model of
how the causal processes operate to produce the phenomenon under investigation. But
appropriately designed experiments may reveal the character of the causal processes, and
thereby suggest to the investigator a particular kind of model.
7 The willingness of scientists to write review papers is an additional topic that might be
investigated from the perspective Hull advances. On the one hand, the scientist loses
valuable research time in preparing the review, but on the other hand has the opportunity
to exert influence on the future direction of the discipline and highlight the importance of
his or her own work.
8 I believe it was from Hull that I first heard this idea, but I no longer know the proper
reference.
9 Hull contributes to this interpretation that scientists generally self-consciously advance
their self interests when he writes of scientists behaving "in ways calculated to get their
views accepted" (p. 128). Moreover, there is a further danger of ignoring proximal factors.
Unless we can identify the proximal mechanisms underlying the phenomena and show how
selection forces operated on them, we run the risk of only telling what Gould and
Lewontin (1979) refer to as just-so-stories and offer evolutionary explanations of factors
that have quite different explanations. The finding that an investigator is more likely to cite
better known scientists than those less well known might, for example, have a completely
different sort of explanation and so not require an evolutionary explanation. It might be
that the investigator is more likely to be very familiar and remember the work of the better
known scientist and so is better able to give credit. To the degree this accounts for the
phenomenon, we do not need a selectionist account of why scientists are more likely to cite
the work of those better known.