The Strong and Weak Senses of Theory-Ladenness of Experimentation: Theory-Driven versus Exploratory Experiments in the History of High-Energy Particle Physics
SCIENCE IN CONTEXT, cilt.26, sa.1, ss.93-136, 2013 (SCI-Expanded, AHCI, SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 26 Sayı: 1
- Basım Tarihi: 2013
- Doi Numarası: 10.1017/s0269889712000300
- Dergi Adı: SCIENCE IN CONTEXT
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.93-136
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
In the theory-dominated view of scientific experimentation, all relations of theory and experiment are taken on a par; namely, that experiments are performed solely to ascertain the conclusions of scientific theories. As a result, different aspects of experimentation and of the relations of theory to experiment remain undifferentiated. This in turn fosters a notion of theory-ladenness of experimentation (TLE) that is too coarse-grained to accurately describe the relations of theory and experiment in scientific practice. By contrast, in this article, I suggest that TLE should be understood as an umbrella concept that has different senses. To this end, I introduce a three-fold distinction among the theories of high-energy particle physics (HEP) as background theories, model theories, and phenomenological models. Drawing on this categorization, I contrast two types of experimentation, namely, "theory-driven" and "exploratory" experiments, and I distinguish between the "weak" and "strong" senses of TLE in the context of scattering experiments from the history of HEP. This distinction enables identifying the exploratory character of the deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering experiments - performed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) between the years 1967 and 1973 - thereby shedding light on a crucial phase of the history of HEP, namely, the discovery of "scaling," which was the decisive step towards the construction of quantum chromo-dynamics as a gauge theory of strong interactions.