Why there was a useful plausible analogy between geodesic domes and spherical viruses

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Abstract

In 1962, Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug published their classic theory of virus structure. They developed their theory with an explicit analogy between spherical viruses and Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. In this paper, I use the spherical virus-geodesic dome case to develop an account of analogy and deductive analogical inference based on the notion of an isomorphism. I also consider under what conditions there is a good reason to claim an experimentally untested analogy is plausible.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)215-236
Number of pages22
JournalHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume28
Issue number2
StatePublished - 2006

Keywords

  • Aaron Klug
  • Analogical reasoning
  • Buckminster Fuller
  • Context of discovery
  • Donald Caspar
  • Francis Crick
  • Geodesic dome
  • History of structural biology
  • Isomorphism
  • James Watson
  • Philosophy of biology
  • Quasi-equivalence
  • Spherical virus
  • Tomato bushy stunt virus

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