List of Figures and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Part 1. Introduction
1. A Background to Prematurity and Resistance to "Discovery"
2. Prematurity in Scientific Discovery
Part 2. Observer and Participant Accounts
3. Prematurity, Nuclear Fission, and the Transuranium Actinide Elements
4. Resistance to Change and New Ideas in Physics: A Personal Perspective
5. The Timeliness of the Discoveries of the Three Modes of Gene Transfer in Bacteria
6. Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science
Part 3. Historical Perspectives
Section A. Relatively Unproblematic Exemplars
7. Prematurity and Delay in the Prevention of Scurvy
8. A Triptych to Serendip: Prematurity and Resistance to Discovery in the Earth Sciences
9. Theories of an Expanding Universe: Implications of Their Reception for the Concept of Scientific Prematurity
10. Interdisciplinary Dissonance and Nuclear Fission: Ida Noddack and the Premature Suggestion of Nuclear Splitting
Section B. Disputable Cases
11. Michael Polanyi’s Theory of Surface Adsorption: How Premature?
12. Prematurity and the Dynamics of Scientific Change
13. Barbara McClintock’s Controlling Elements: Premature Discovery or Stillborn Theory?
14. The Work of Joseph Adams and Archibald Garrod: Possible Examples of Prematurity in Human Genetics
Part 4. Natural Selection and Evolution from the Perspective of Prematurity
15. The Prematurity of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection
16. Prematurity, Evolutionary Biology, and the Historical Sciences
Part 5. Perspectives from the Vantage Point of the Social Sciences
17. Prematurity in Political "Science": Three Paradigms
18. The Impact and Fate of Gunther Stent’s Prematurity Thesis
19. Premature Discovery Is Failure of Intersection among Social Worlds
Part 6. Philosophical Perspectives
20. Fleck, Kuhn, and Stent: Loose Reflections on the Notion of Prematurity
21. The Concept of Prematurity and the Philosophy of Science
Part 7. Closing Considerations
22. Prematurity and Promise: Why Was Stent’s Notion of Prematurity Itself So Premature?
23. Reflections on Hull’s Remarks
24. Comments
25. Extensions and Complexities: In Defense of Prematurity in Scientific Discovery
Index
Contributors: Kenneth J. Carpenter, Nathaniel Comfort, Elihu Gerson, Michael Ghiselin, William Glen, Norris S. Hetherington, Frederic L. Holmes, Ernest B. Hook, David Hull, Martin Jones, Ilana Löwy, Arno G. Motulsky, Gonzalo Munévar, Mary Jo Nye, Michael Ruse, Oliver Sacks, Glenn T. Seaborg, Gunther S. Stent, Lawrence Stern, Charles H. Townes, George Von der Muhll, Norton Zinder