The Discovery of DNA’s Molecular Structure :: Science Genetics Papers

Theoretical models for the molecular(a) structure of desoxyribonucleic acid gage be likened to scientific theories. DNAs structure was determined for the most part because scientists scrutinized the relationship between scheme (a particular theoretical model of DNA) and bill (x-ray crystallographic patterns, or bonding patterns between bases and sugar-phosphate groups, for example). Inductivists, falsificationists, Kuhn, and Feyerabend all bemuse different banknotes of how scientists have related theory to observation. These accounts are important because, not only do they delineate frameworks scientists use to develop their theories, but because these frameworks subsequently became important in developing a theory for the molecular structure of DNA.The inductivist account of acquirement recognizes five steps that are essential to scientific progress, and consequently, the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. First, scientists compile a large body of facts from ob servation and experiment. utilise the principle of induction, these facts whoremaster, often with severe logical difficulties, be generalized to soma the basis for a theory or law. Then, once a theory has been developed, scientists can use the theory as part of a legal logical argument to make new predictions or explanations of phenomena. According to Chalmers, the inductivist account has a certain appeal to it, namely, that all of scientific progress can be seen as the result of a linear, highly structured inducive scientific method (54). Its attraction lies in the fact that it does seem to attach in a formal way some of the commonly held intuitions close the special characteristics of scientific knowledge, namely its objectivity, its reliability, and its usefulness (57). An inductivist account of the discovery of DNAs molecular structure might proceed in the pastime way. First, early molecular biologists compiled a large body of facts from observation and experiment, such(p renominal) as Rosalind Franklins findings on the structure of DNA based on her x-ray crystallography work. From these facts, a theory of DNA structure was developed. Watson demonstrates, in The parlay Helix how one aspect of DNA structure was determined from literal experimental observations. In the b-model of DNA,the meridional reflection at 3.4 A was a good deal stronger than any other reflection. This could only mean that the 3.4 A-thick purine and pyrimidine bases were stacked on top out of each other in a direction perpendicular to the verticillate axis. In addition we could feel sure from both electron-microscope and X-ray assure that the helix diameter was about 20 A (110).