Replicating Replication? Aspects of the Social Construction of Learning in Planarian Worms

Social Studies of Science

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 1981, Pages 11-32

  Travis, G D L ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84972637636     PISSN: 03063127     EISSN: 14603659     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030631278101100102     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. H. M. Collins, ‘The Seven Sexes: A Study in the Sociology of a Phenomenon, or the Replication of Experiments in Physics’, Sociology, Vol. 9 (1975), 205-24; ‘Son of Seven Sexes: The Social Destruction of a Physical Phenomenon’, in this issue, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11 (1981), 33-62.
2. H. M. Collins, ‘Upon the Replication of Scientific Findings: A Discussion Illuminated by the Experiences of Researchers into Parapsychology’, Proceedings of the 4S/ISA Conference on Social Studies of Science, Cornell University, November 1976 (unpublished mimeo: copies available from the author, University of Bath, UK); Collins and T. J. Pinch, ‘The Construction of the Paranormal: Nothing Unscientific is Happening’, in R. Wallis (ed.), On the Margins of Science: The Social Construction of Rejected Knowledge (Keele, Staffs.: University of Keele, Sociological Review Monograph No. 27, 1979), 237-70;
3. Pinch, ‘Normal Explanations of the Paranormal: The Demarcation Problem and Fraud in Parapsychology’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 9 (1979), 329-48.
4. R. Kemp, ‘Controversy in Scientific Research and Tactics of Communication’, Sociological Review, Vol. 25 (1977), 515-34;
5. M. Mulkay and G. N. Gilbert, work in progress.
6. B. Harvey, ‘Rationality, Relativism and the Sociology of Science: The Case of the Local Hidden Variable Theory’ (Edinburgh, UK: Science Studies Unit, Edinburgh University, unpublished mimeo, 1977);
7. Harvey, ‘The Effects of Social Context on the Process of Scientific Investigation: Experimental Tests of Quantum Mechanics’, in K. D. Knorr, R. Krohn and R. Whitley (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, Vol. 4 (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980), 139-63.
8. A. R. Pickering, ‘The Role of Interests in High-Energy Physics: The Choice Between Charm and Colour’, in Knorr et al. (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation, Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook, vol 4 note 4, 107-38.
9. T. J. Pinch, ‘The Sun-Set: The Presentation of Certainty in Scientific Life’, in this issue, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 11 (1981), 131-58.
10. The research was conducted during a graduate studentship at the University of Bath: see G. D. L. Travis, The Sociology of Memory Transfer (PhD thesis, University of Bath, forthcoming). The bulk of the data for my thesis comes from the published literature on memory transfer, and some seventy interviews conducted in 1976 and 1977. In this paper, the majority of the scientists’ statements I quote are from published sources.
11. I. St. James-Roberts, ‘Are Researchers Trustworthy?’, New Scientist (2 September 1976), 481-83.
12. See, for example, S. B. Barnes, Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974);
13. H. M. Collins and G. Cox, ‘Recovering Relativity: Did Prophesy Fail?’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 6 (1976), 423-44.
14. Collins, ‘The Seven Sexes …’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 6 (1976), 423-44. note 1.
15. M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958). Related ideas are to be found under ‘craft knowledge’ in J. R. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), and the Wittgensteinian notion of a ‘rule’ in P. Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Epistemology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971).
16. See T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1970);
17. Winch, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1970. note 14; Collins (1975), H. M. Collins. ‘The TEA Set: Tacit Knowledge and Scientific Networks’, Science Studies, Vol. 4 (1974), 165-86.
18. Collins (1975), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn, 1970. note 1, 207 (emphasis in original).
19. R. Thompson and J. V. McConnell, ‘Classical Conditioning in the Planarian, Dugesia dorotocephala’, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 48 (1955), 65-68.
20. J. V. McConnell, A. L. Jacobson and D. P. Kimble, ‘The Effects of Regeneration upon Retention of a Conditioned Response in the Planarian’, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 52 (1959), 1-5.
21. J. V. McConnell, R. Jacobson and B. Humphries, ‘The Effects of Ingestion of Conditioned Planaria on the Response Level of Naive Planaria: A Pilot Study (Or: ‘you are what you eat?’)’, The Worm Runner's Digest, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1961), 41-47.
22. J. V. McConnell, ‘Memory Transfer Through Cannibalism in Planarians’, Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Vol. 3 (Suppl. 1) (1962), S42.
23. E. S. Halas, R. L. James and L. A. Stone, ‘Types of Response Elicited in Planaria by Light’, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 54 (1961), 302-05.
24. Some of the details on pseudoconditioning are adapted from J. V. McConnell, ‘Cannibals, Chemicals and Contiguity’, Animal Behaviour, Vol. 13 (Suppl. 1) (1965), 65.
25. D. D. Jensen, ‘Paramecia, Planaria and Pseudo-learning’, Animal Behaviour, Vol. 13 (Suppl. 1) (1965), 13.
26. Jensen also complained that the pseudoconditioning control group received only one-fifth as many exposures to the light as to the shock.
27. E. S. Halas, R. L. James and C. S. Knutson, ‘An Attempt at Classical Conditioning in the Planarian’, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, Vol. 55 (1962), 969-71. In the case of this particular experiment it is clear that it was intended to be a fairly close copy (replication) of the original Thompson and McConnell study. In the majority of studies on planarians, however, there was no attempt to copy any particular experiment. (Many of the classical conditioning experiments did in fact use a light-shock training procedure analogous to that of Thompson and McConnell, but were otherwise different.) In the scientists’ own terms, what they were doing was ‘replicating the phenomenon’, not ‘copying experiments’ — a process that was also referred to as ‘exact’ or ‘procedural’ replication. In such circumstances published reports were not used as algorithms to be copied, but as indications of the kind of cultural resources that the originating scientists saw as appropriate to their experiments.
28. R. L. James and E. S. Halas, ‘No Difference in Extinction Behaviour in Planaria Following Various Types and Amounts of Training’, The Psychological Record, Vol. 14 (1964), 1-14. It should be pointed out that similar criticisms were made by others; these particular papers have been selected as illustrative.
29. J. V. McConnell, ‘On The Training of Worms: A Reply to James and Halas’, The Psychological Record, Vol. 14 (1964), 13-20, quote at 16 (emphasis in original). James and Halas's ‘Reply to McConnell’ is to be found in the same volume, 21-23.
30. Witness, Halas: ‘I was interested in Dr. Coming's comments about procedure and that my procedures were not like the McConnell and Jacobson methods. Which procedures should I follow? They change their procedures every month, and they are still changing. If they had successful methods back in 1955 and 1959, why didn't they keep them?’ Corning: ‘I think the reply would be that, rather than beat a dead horse like the Thompson and McConnell paper, it would be better to improve methods, like McConnell has done and as we have done and get results …’ This exchange is taken from the discussion in W. C. Corning and S. C. Ratner (eds), Chemistry of Learning: Invertebrate Research (New York: Plenum Press, 1977), 271.
31. F. A. Brown, ‘Response of the Planarian, Dugesia, and the Protozoan, Paramecium, to Very Weak Horizontal Magnetic Fields’, Biological Bulletin, Vol. 23 (1962), 264-81.
32. The list was never published, but a discussion of many possible influences is to be found in J. V. McConnell, ‘Specific Factors Influencing Planarian Behavior’, in Corning and Ratner (eds), Biological Bulletin, Vol. 23 (1962), 264-81 note 33, 217-33.
33. C. D. Barnes and B. G. Katzung, ‘Stimulus Polarity and Conditioning in Planaria’, Science, Vol. 141 (23 August 1963), 728-30.
34. These points are taken from an interview with McConnell. Similar points are to be found in McConnell, ‘Stimulus Polarity and Conditioning in Planaria’, Science, Vol. 141 (23 August 1963), 728-30 note 35.
35. E. L. Bennett and M. Calvin, ‘Failure to Train Planarians Reliably’, Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin (July/August 1964), 3-24.
36. The Bulletin did, however, publish a short letter from McConnell, drawing attention to the fact of his disagreement. He stated his intention to publish a reply in his ‘informal journal’, The Worm Runner's Digest.
37. The quotation is taken from ‘Failure to Interpret Planarian Data Correctly: A Reply to Bennett and Calvin’. McConnell did not, in the event, publish this in his journal, though copies of the paper were circulated. The detail on statistics is repeated in J. V. McConnell, ‘Comparative Physiology: Learning in Invertebrates’, Annual Review of Physiology, Vol. 28 (1966), 119. In view of the nature of the disagreement between McConnell and Bennett and Calvin, it is relevant to note that reviews and discussions of research involving both biochemists and psychologists frequently comment on the very real difficulties of such interdisciplinary work.
38. E. L. Bennett, Discussion, in Corning and Ratner (eds), 1966. note 33, 272. In the eyes of many, the lack of controls for experimenter bias was sufficient to invalidate the results of such experiments. This question is dealt with in more detail in my forthcoming thesis (see note 7).
39. W. C. Corning and D. Riccio, ‘The Planarian Controversy’, in W. L. Byrne (ed.), Molecular Approaches to Learning and Memory (New York: Academic Press, 1970), 128. See also note 28.
40. This rather unusual journal, and its effect on the memory transfer controversy, are discussed in my paper ‘On the Construction of Creativity: The “Memory Transfer” Phenomenon and the Importance of Being Earnest’, in Knorr et al. (eds), 1970. note 4, 165-93.
41. J. V. McConnell and J. M. Shelby, ‘Memory Transfer Experiments in Invertebrates’, in Byrne (ed.), 1970. note 45, 101.
42. J. V. McConnell, ‘Worms and Things …’ (Editorial), The Worm Runner's Digest, Vol. 6 (1964), 1.
43. Jensen, ‘Worms and Things …’ (Editorial), The Worm Runner's Digest, Vol. 6 (1964), 1. note 26, 15. Corning and Riccio (note 45), for example, continued the polemic and commented on Jensen in terms of his ‘strategy of the sceptic’.
44. Jensen, ‘Worms and Things …’ (Editorial), The Worm Runner's Digest, Vol. 6 (1964), 1, 12.
45. (Popper, 1959) is, of course, K. R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper and Row, 1959).
46. Jensen, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper and Row, 1959. note 26, 13.
47. Discussing the area in a later paper, Jensen drew upon Bridgman's operationalism and Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance; see D. D. Jensen, ‘Polythetic Operationism and the Phylogeny of Learning’, in Corning and Ratner (eds), The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper and Row, 1959. note 33, 43-55. To adapt Marx's dictum, the philosophy of science was not being used to interpret the world — the point was to change it.
48. A leading figure in this research, Robert Rosenthal, has stated that ‘behavioral scientists have learned that unsuccessful replication is so common that we hardly know what it means when one's data don't conform to another's.’ R. Rosenthal, Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1966), 34. Other works that should be cited in this area are: M. Sidman, Tactics of Scientific Research (New York: Basic Books, 1960) and T. X. Barber, Pitfalls in Human Research (New York: Pergamon, 1976). It may well be that the sociological explanation of the emergence of social psychological studies of the experimental situation is similar to the perspective I suggest for worm running — a response to continued problems and controversy over the social processes of replicating experiments.
49. Since writing this paper, I have received a copy of a paper by M. Mulkay and G. N. Gilbert, ‘Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper's Influence on Scientific Practice’ (University of York, UK, unpublished mimeo, June 1980). In their case-study of oxydative phosphorylation, the authors find that Popper's rules of scientific action do not play an active part in scientists’ reasoning, just as I have indicated was the case in the dispute between Jensen and McConnell (see page 25 above).