State of the field: Are the results of science contingent or inevitable?

This paper presents a survey of the literature on the problem of contingency in science. The survey is structured around three challenges faced by current attempts at understanding the conflict between “contingentist” and “inevitabilist” interpretations of scientific knowledge and practice. First, the challenge of definition: it proves hard to define the positions that are at stake in a way that is both conceptually rigorous and does justice to the plethora of views on the issue. Second, the challenge of distinction: some features of the debate suggest that the contingency issue may not be sufficiently distinct from other philosophical debates to constitute a genuine, independent philosophical problem. And third, the challenge of decidability: it remains unclear whether and how the conflict could be settled on the basis of empirical evidence from the actual history of science. The paper argues that in order to make progress in the present debate, we need to distinguish more systematically between different expressions that claims about contingency and inevitability in science can take. To this end, it introduces a taxonomy of different contingency and inevitability claims. The taxonomy has the structure of an ordered quadruple. Each contingency and each inevitability claim contains an answer to the following four questions: (how) are alternatives to current science possible, what types of alternatives are we talking about, how should the alternatives be assessed, and how different are they from actual science?     

A rapid assay for the localization of protein kinase modulator (inhibitor) in complete polyacrylamide gels

Summary A gel assay system for determination of inhibitory proteins for protein kinase(s) on isoelectric focusing gels has been developed. Preparations of heat-stable inhibitors were applied, focused, and the complete gels incubated with protein kinase in the presence of substrate protein. At the position where inhibitory protein had focused, the phosphorylation reaction was blocked selectively.This investigation was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.     

Carcinogenesis and inhibited biosynthesis of soluble mouse skin proteins by actidione

Zusammenfassung Actidion hemmt die Synthese löslicher Proteine der Mäusehaut, reduziert die Bindung lokal applizierter Karzinogene (BP und DMBA) an lösliche Proteine, ohne die Tumorausbeute imBerenblum-Experiment zu beeinflussen.     

Inactivation of tissue-specific inhibitors by a carcinogen (diethylnitrosamine)

Zusammenfassung Der Einbau von Thymidin in Leberexplantate wird durch lösliche Leberproteine gehemmt. Diese Hemmung ist aufgehoben, wenn die Proteine aus Lebern karzinogenbehandelter Tiere präpariert wurden. Dieser Effekt ist organspezifisch.     

Time and dose dependent inhibition and enhancement of thymidine incorporation into fibroplasts by Prednisolone

Zusammenfassung Prednisolon wirkt aufl-Zellen in vitro bimodal: Der Einbau von H-Thymidin wird in Abhängigkeit von der Hormonkonzentration gehemmt beziehungsweise gefördert.     

A rapid microtechnique for incorporation studies in cell cultures

Zusammenfassung Eine Methode zur bequemen Messung radioaktiver Vorläufer in Monolayer-Zellkulturen wird beschrieben. Die auf flexiblen Plastikkulturplatten (z. B. Linbro FB 48-TC) in zahlreichen Einzelkulturen gezüchteten, markierten, extrahierten und getrockneten Monolayer-Kulturen können direkt (beispielsweise mit einer Schere) in Zählgläschen für die Szintillations-messung eingeschnitten werden.