Representación de dominios teóricos mediante retículos: el dominio de la herencia biológica durante el periodo 1865-1902

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the domain of biological heredity theories from the period of 1865-1902. Said episode in science was one of much controversy and daring speculations, free of constraints from an established paradigm. Many theoretical proposals were made, the set of which does not fit well with the meta-theoretical category of theory net. Nonetheless, the theory elements identified are linked to each other, due to the fact that they share certain structures. This allows the introduction of the idea of a theory-domain as a lattice-like arrangement; where links between theory elements do not represent specializations of fundamental laws, but sequences of substructure couplings. The article explores saidrepresentation, and does so by combining aspects of the structuralist program’s apparatus with the ordination technique of Formal Concept Analysis. In a nutshell, Formal Concept Analysis is applied to twenty reconstructions of theory elements concerning heredity, form the period 1865-1902.