Retrospection and prognostication: ontogeny of a discipline.
Retrospection and prognostication: ontogeny of a discipline.
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回顾与预测：一门学科的本体论。
DOI：
10.1007/bf01939891
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发表时间：
1988
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Manasek,FJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Manasek,FJ
The present collection of papers concerning cardiac development approaches the field in a very catholic way, ranging from comparative anatomy and physiology to molecular studies. Perhaps as important as the data contained in them, these papers demonstrate very nicely how the problems of organ development and function can be viewed from many different vantage points. Moreover they provide a splendid overview that should enable workers in other fields to rapidly acquire a good insight into the field. In looking over this collection, I am impressed by the rapid rate of data accumulation, and I wonder about the ultimate direction in which the field is moving. What determines this direction? Is it dissatisfaction with pre-existing paradigms or is it an evolution brought about by new data that expands horizons? Certainly the relatively new work with neural crest has revised our perceptions of heart development. This is work that does not owe its existence to pre-existing models of heart development and it would be interesting to compare this work to others that have such a legacy. How do new data feed back to influence and modify their intellectual forebears? If the feedback operates slowly is this because of the inherent conservatism of the scientific process, the enormous inertia of the pre-existing mass of data compared to the mass of the new data or is it because some data are gathered and selected with pre-existing paradigms in mind and therefore tend to support that which is already known or thought to be known? These are some of the questions I will try to address in this essay.
