HSNS 2021 51(4) - Deichmann; Miri

Template Theories, the Rule of Parsimony, and Disregard for Irreproducibility—The Example of Linus Pauling’s Research on Antibody Formation 

Ute Deichmann

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2021) 51 (4): 427–467.

https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2021.51.4.427

•  Linus Pauling e a irreprodutibilidade. Menciona o quanto Pauling era vaidoso e não voltava atrás com suas teorias mesmo quando confrontado com outras ideias mais consensuais. O estudo de caso aqui é a formação dos anticorpos segundo Pauling.
• A parte cientifica é um pouco complicada demais para uma lida superficial. Vou ficar com as conclusões.
• O sistema "instrutivo" (no qual o antigeno instrui a formação do anticorpo) d eformação de aticorpos de pauling foi guiado pela sua inclinação por parsimonia e simplicdiade e complementaridade. As teorias instrutivas era mais parcimoniosas que a teorias de geração e estoque de acs.
• O sistema instrutivo de templates eventualmente foi substituido por teorias seletivas, mas:
• Pauling’s wide knowledge and strong belief in the correctness of his own theories had been instrumental in vigorously promoting novel concepts such as molecular specificity and molecular disease.121 But such a belief as well as the general lack of self-criticism that his own students and colleagues attributed to him, prevented him also from abandoning a theory when it became increasingly questionable and even the novel methods predicted by the theory failed to work. Pauling would not disavow his claims of successful synthesis of specific artificial antibodies based on his 1940 theory when they were conclusively shown to be irreproducible by others. 462
• The ideas of simplicity and parsimony led other chemists to search for—and allegedly find—regularity and periodicity in protein (primary) structure, i.e., their linear chain of amino acids. The resulting marginalization of the amino acid sequence for function could be reconciled with Pauling’s assumption that the three-dimensional shape of proteins and their associated functions were independent of sequence. However, it contradicted the increasingly accepted evidence that sequence was important for function and that biological specificity and biological information were based on intrinsic “aperiodicity” (Schro¨- dinger) and sequence diversity. 463
• Experimentos de Pauling não eram reproduziveis. O msm aconteceu com outras pesquisas de síntese de enzimas. Até hj não há metodo de sintese de enzimas reproduzivel.
• The case of Pauling and some of the above-mentioned cases suggest that in addition to science-political factors, personal factors and subjective preferences of theories may have contributed to the frequent occurrence of questionable research and irreproducible experiments in the field of protein chemistry.128 These cases have to be distinguished from those that are at the center of the discussion of irreproducibility in the medical sciences, social sciences, and in psychology today that is mainly related to problems in using statistics.129 Statistical flaws, however, were and are not at the center of the irreproducibility of the work in experimental chemistry by Abderhalden, Pauling, Atassi, or Schultz. 465
• Papers não reproduziveis geram desperdício a longuissimo prazo (mas a cc tem que se autocorrigir não?).
• The example of Pauling shows that the inclusion of subjective decisions and beliefs into scientific theories runs the risk of leading an unwary researcher astray. However, it should not be forgotten that subjectivity and commitment to scientific beliefs were also pre-requisites for the generation of most of the seminal theories and concepts in the history of modern biology, including the generation of Pauling’s concepts of complementarity and molecular specificity.

The Fall of Vannevar Bush: The Forgotten War for Control of Science Policy in Postwar America 

Johnny Miri

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2021) 51 (4): 507–541.

https://doi.org/10.1525/hsns.2021.51.4.507

• Fundador da OSRD. Vital para o desenvolvimento das bombas atômicas. Mudou o paradigma sobre a pesquisa básica nos eua. Passou a andar junto com os esforços militares. Ligado a Conant 509
• Pioneiro do 'basic science" 510
• Pós guerra marca traz a transição da política de emergência por redes de contatos para instituições federais com políticas públicas. Planejou uma organização civil da ciência nacional, mas foi suplantado pela militarização da guerra fria. Não há uma continuidade militar na politica cientifica portanto.
• Amigo de FDR. Mesmo com desavenças politicas eles concordavam no papel do estado para financiar pesquisa básica (mas focando em ganhos militares). 515
• Manejava os recursos para os projetos de guerra, como o Manhatthan. Outras áreas de pesquisa ficavam na mesma. Tinha carta branca de FDR, Morte do presidente aleija seu poder 516
• Secretário de guerra stimson tbm era do time de Bush. Se aposenta um pouco antes da morte de FDR. 518-9
• Faking the flu was most likely not the sole cause of Truman’s loss of trust in Bush. Rather, the President’s distancing of himself from Bush, and the science advisor’s subsequent loss of influence in the White House, was caused by several other factors. Chief among these was the major difference in personalities, priorities, and beliefs between Bush and Truman. Despite similarities in political views to Franklin Roosevelt, Truman was vastly different in personality and public image. Truman was one of only a handful of modern presidents who never received a college degree, unlike the highly educated Roosevelt and Bush. The new, Midwestern president emphasized his status as a pragmatic man of the people, and likely held disdain for Bush’s Yankee elitism.57 In October 1945, when a reporter inquired about Truman’s prior dependence on Bush concerning atomic affairs, the president sarcastically replied, “if that’s worth anything to you.” 520-1
• With the protection afforded by Henry Stimson and Franklin Roosevelt no longer in play after World War II, Vannevar Bush’s postwar decisions required significantly more political acuity to prevent angering the many politicians, scientists, and military officers in Washington. Nevertheless, Bush made several decisions after the war that drew enormous controversy, causing him to become increasingly marginalized among important officials and pushed out of governmental affairs. Among these decisions was Bush’s relentless advocacy for a rapid liquidation of the Office of Scientific Research and Development immediately after the war, despite frequent requests to maintain the organization. Bush believed that the OSRD should be closed for several reasons. One was that he thought the organization was overwhelmed by its wartime responsibility, and incorrectly assumed that all of its scientists would be eager to return to prewar conditions.62 This was shortsighted because Bush failed to account for how much the scientists had become accustomed to the virtually unlimited funding they enjoyed during World War II. Scientists were concerned that a closure of the OSRD would bring a return to the prewar years of limited government subsidies.63 To Bush, this was not a major concern—his financial success as a cofounder of Raytheon made it difficult to understand that young researchers in the OSRD relied heavily upon it for a salary. The second justification for his advocacy of the dissolution of the OSRD was that Bush wished for a new research organization to emerge in its place.64 The OSRD was a wartime emergency establishment, forged from the broad authorization style of President Roosevelt. Bush believed that the organization possessed too many emergency powers and was not suitable for peacetime.65 To carry out these beliefs, Bush drastically cut the staff of the OSRD to only twenty-six employees in 1947, infuriating the scientists who depended on the organization for pay and work. 521-2
• Dinheiro fala mais alto. Grande revolta contra Bush por parte de vários cientistas. Também danificou mais ainda sua relação com truman que, por sua vez, não deu muita atenção a Science the endless frontier.
• Bush tinha muita privacidade com seus projetos. Tocou o financiamento do Manh. e outros projetos de guerra sem revelar aos militares, ao congresso e até ao vice presidente. Isso gerava bastante desgaste com os militares.
• The fundamental separation between these two groups, however, was not due to a lack of support by Bush for research directly relevant to national security. Rather, Bush advocated for and created a structure of governance that placed civilians in control of research organizations. The primacy of civilian leadership in Bush’s wartime programs, as well as more specific policy issues, provided the source of frequent tension. However, those disagreements all had one underlying commonality: though held in check during the war due to Bush’s friendships with Stimson and Roosevelt, they jeopardized his political standing once the war was over. 528
• Outro problema é que ele não acreditava em mísseis intercont. e foguetes. Conforme aumentou a guerra fria sua oposição aos militares no comando das agencias e a certas tecnologias o isolou cada vez mais.
• Debate sobre NSF. Bush favorecia financiamento por mérito, enquanto Kilgore por geografia.
• Legislation proposed by Kilgore tended to support the social sciences to a much higher degree than Bush, who wished funding be provided for social sciences by “other channels,” if at all.132 Debates over censorship and patent licensing also arose, with Bush arguing for less availability of research to the public.133 Additionally, as Jessica Wang has noted, Kilgore’s bills were reminiscent of “New Deal planning.”134 Although Bush may have worked with many New Deal politicians (Roosevelt among them) during wartime, he was never a strong supporter of the reforms, and surely never applied them to his largely independent role as science ad'ministrator 535
• The debate over the National Science Foundation proved harmful to Bush’s relationship with many academics, as his personal opinions on the value of various fields of research were publicized. Scholars supporting the social sciences, including Henry Allen Moe and the members of the Social Science Research Council, were angered by Bush’s disdain and lack of support for the social sciences.138 This led them to deny endorsement of Bush-backed proposals, including the Magnuson Bill, and support the more progressive Kilgore Bill, which included a specific section on social science.139 The humanities had not forgotten the slights that Bush made against them during his tenure at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which had included slashing funds for the history of science journal Isis and jokingly threatening to kill George Sarton after the editor appealed to a trustee of the organization.
• In addition to academics from the social sciences and humanities, Bush also found himself at odds with many biologists from the National Academy of Sciences.141 Many of the scholars in the field felt that both Science: The Endless Frontier and the Magnuson Bill spurned biology in favor of medicine. Indignant biologists argued that Bush’s Magnuson Bill would distort the field into a mere “handmaiden of medicine.”142 This suspicion was rooted in Bush’s leadership during World War II, in which his OSRD often prioritized medicine over the broader field of the life sciences. This difference was part of the wartime focus of Bush who, as an engineer, had favored the application of science over more general fields. 536
• A ONR acabou rtomando o lugar da OSRD. 537
• Conant’s essay echoed growing frustration with military intervention in science policy, particularly among student protestors.148 - The extended timeof debate before its establishment as law meant the NSF was born into a world of research with considerably more military involvement than Bush had originally envisioned. Conant wrote that “by the time a National Science Foundation was finally established ... the Office of Naval Research had already entered into contractual relations with a number of leading universities, and most of these contracts did not preclude work on secret projects.”149 This sentiment has been discussed by Daniel Kevles, who characterized the Korean War as the pivotal event by which growing military presence in 1950s science policy was secured.150 From personal conflict came the establishment of large, often military-led institutions like the ONR that both funded science and worked to secure their own supremacy. The protracted debate over founding the NSF was essential to the removal of Bush from control of research. More importantly, it harmed the very scientific independence for which he strove. 537-8
• Debate se a militarização da cc foi devido a demora na formação da NSF ou devido a fatores geopoliticos.
• A sdaúde de Bush deteriou muito durante o tempo de guerra.
• A patronagem militar era muito comum na física, mas não tanto nas biomédicas e sociais que eram financias de várias formas, inclusive instituições privadas. 540
• Military patronage in Cold War science policy, particularly in the physical sciences, did not necessarily mean scientific inquiry became entirely focused upon national security—the ONR provided ample funding for basic research that was only vaguely connected to national security, a role which would be curbed much later in the Mansfield Amendment enacted in the 1970s.167 However, this wide scope of military involvement serves to further demonstrate the fundamental shift in leadership occurring in the early postwar years. Bush’s departure from Washington marked both the end of independent civilian direction of research and the transition from personal to institutional decision-making on science policy 541
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