The resisted rise of randomisation in experimental design: British agricultural science, c.1910-1930.
The resisted rise of randomisation in experimental design: British agricultural science, c.1910-1930.
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实验设计中随机化的抵制崛起：英国农业科学，c.1910-1930。
DOI：
10.1007/s40656-015-0076-8
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Berry D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berry D
农业试验最显著的形式是田间试验，在这种试验的历史中，随机对照试验（RCT）的到来被认为是革命性的。由R.A.发起自1920年代和1930年代Fisher在英国农业科学中使用RCT以来，RCT已成为自然科学和社会科学中最广泛使用的实验技术之一。科学哲学家已经仔细研究了随机对照试验的认识论独特性，破坏了它们作为实验设计“黄金标准”的地位。本文介绍了一个历史案例研究的起源随机对照试验，揭示了最初的冷接待给这种方法的农业科学家在大学的剑桥和（剑桥为基础的）国家农业植物研究所。而不是给予进一步关注的随机对照试验，该文件的重点，而不是竞争对手的方法-半钻条-这两个早于随机对照试验，并仍然在广泛使用至少十年后，后者的到来。在讲述这段历史时，约翰·皮克斯通的《认识的方式》被采用，作为写科学史最灵活和最富有成效的方式，特别是当科学和科学家必须跨越许多不同类型的地方工作时。它表明，那些谁抵制随机对照试验这样做是为了维护认知和社会目标，随机化，否则会运行一台拖拉机通过。
The most conspicuous form of agricultural experiment is the field trial, and within the history of such trials, the arrival of the randomised control trial (RCT) is considered revolutionary. Originating with R.A. Fisher within British agricultural science in the 1920s and 1930s, the RCT has since become one of the most prodigiously used experimental techniques throughout the natural and social sciences. Philosophers of science have already scrutinised the epistemological uniqueness of RCTs, undermining their status as the ‘gold standard’ in experimental design. The present paper introduces a historical case study from the origins of the RCT, uncovering the initially cool reception given to this method by agricultural scientists at the University of Cambridge and the (Cambridge based) National Institute of Agricultural Botany. Rather than giving further attention to the RCT, the paper focuses instead on a competitor method—the half-drill strip—which both predated the RCT and remained in wide use for at least a decade beyond the latter’s arrival. In telling this history, John Pickstone’sWays of Knowingis adopted, as the most flexible and productive way to write the history of science, particularly when sciences and scientists have to work across a number of different kinds of place. It is shown that those who resisted the RCT did so in order to preserve epistemic and social goals that randomisation would have otherwise run a tractor through.