Glen Roy’s parallel roads controversy: a justification of Darwin’s procedures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-6224v18i1p59-72Keywords:
Glen Roy’s parallel roads, Scientific controversies, History of biology, Charles DarwinAbstract
A meaningful philosophical heading for understanding scientific production stands on cognitive expertise; authorities operate as causal agents of specific scientific achievements. Historiography usually pays much attention to bearings that come out of scientific successes. However, the history of biology offers an example in which adherence to cognitive experts resulted in a theoretical failure: the controversy over “the parallel roads of Glen Roy” between Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the Swiss geologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873). Darwin, while his investigations, used several cognitive experts such as William Whewell (1794-1866) e Charles Lyell (1797-1875) and considered several hypotheses but denied Agassiz’s one, using the “principle of exclusion”. The purpose of this paper is to show Darwin was justified in doing that, providing his sources, which were flawless authorities in science.
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