How Scientists Explain Disease

by Paul Thagard

How do scientists develop new explanations of disease? How do those explanations become accepted as true? And how does medical diagnosis change when physicians are confronted with new scientific evidence? These are some of the questions that Paul Thagard pursues in this pathbreaking book that develops a new, integrative approach to the study of science.


Ranging through the history of medicine, from the Hippocratic theory of humors to modern explanations of Mad Cow Disease and chronic fatigue syndrome, Thagard analyzes the development and acceptance of scientific ideas. At the heart of the book is a case study of the recent dramatic shift in medical understanding of peptic ulcers, most of which are now believed to be caused by infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. When this explanation was first proposed in 1983, it was greeted with intense skepticism by most medical experts, but it became widely accepted over the next decade. Thagard discusses the psychological processes of discovery and acceptance, the physical processes involving instruments and experiments, and the social processes of collaboration, communication, and consensus that brought about this transformation in medical knowledge.



How Scientists Explain Disease challenges both traditional philosophy of science, which has viewed science as largely a matter of logic, and contemporary science studies that view science as largely a matter of power. Drawing on theories of distributed computing and artificial intelligence, Paul Thagard develops new models that make sense of scientific change as a complex system of cognitive, social, and physical interactions.


This is a book that will appeal to all readers with an interest in the development of science and medicine. It combines an engaging style, significant research, and a powerfully original argument.

268 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kirkus Reviews

A laborious examination of the evolution of the bacterial theory of peptic ulcers, pointing more generally to how scientific theories evolve.

Thagard (Philosophy/Univ. Of Waterloo, Canada) begins by arguing against a traditional view of scientists as individuals conducting objective experiments with no presupposed outcome.

The ``postmodern view'' of scientists trying to prove a hypothesis that will be most beneficial to them (``largely a matter of politics'') is similarly too simplistic.

Thagard's general discussions of scientific research schemas include many flow-chart-like diagrams that demonstrate possible cause-and-effect relationships, such as how social and psychological explanations of science relate to the science itself.

The book tries too hard to explain itself, plodding through each theory step by step, even giving some arguments in outline form. This poor writing tends to obfuscate matters rather than simplify them.

Thagard's treatment of complex equations showing causal probabilities, for example, concludes with the obtuse statement that ``causal reasoning requires the abductive inference that a factor has the power to produce an effect.'' Once deciphered, this is hardly a profound point.