Viruses are "unique" and challenge the paradigms of science
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23882/rmd.22094Keywords:
viruses, paradigms, science, ecology, virosphereAbstract
The history of the progress of scientific knowledge of viruses demonstrates that the tendency of researchers to get caught up in specific paradigms and theories about the causes of diseases does not allow them to see the threats of known and unknown pathogens (Honigsbaum, 2021). This is the case, for example, of the “germ theory” of the disease, presented by the German bacteriologist Robert Koch and his French colleague Louis Pasteur, in the 1880s. The bacteriological paradigm of human flu, when defended by Richard Pfeiffer in 1892, delayed the understanding of its viral etiology for decades. Unfortunately, it was rare the man of science who dared challenge the authority of Koch and his disciples.
In this article, we intended to contribute to the elaboration of a scientific image of viruses, confronting it, whenever necessary, with the ontology of everyday life. For Dennett (2021), the scientific image is something that has to be learned at school, and most people acquire a superficial knowledge of it. Nevertheless, in our relationship with viruses, we have to learn what “things” to remove from our ontology of everyday life and what new categories to introduce to create an ontology of the scientific image of viruses, underpinning our understanding of these unique entities that challenge scientific paradigms. It is in this context that the approach to the process of production of scientific knowledge has been identified as being of fundamental importance to understanding Science and Virology has a historically contextualized human activity.
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