Abstract

There are a number of reasons for doubting the standard view that scientific theories (understood as sets of connected statements) are the best units for investigating scientific continuity and change (that is, research programs continue as long as groups of scientists accept the central tenets of such theories). Here it is argued that one weakness of this approach is that it cannot be used to demarcate adequately scientific communities or conceptual systems (that is, it fails as a classificatory scheme). Recent alternative proposals by Philip Kitcher and David Hull are assessed in terms of their usefulness in demarcating "Darwinism" and the "Darwinians" in the first decade or so after the publication of The Origin of Species, focusing on the case of Charles Lyell