I argue that while Gale may present a somewhat logical definition for the term “accidental discovery,” as well as a convincing argument as to why his idea of accidental discoveries does not exist, Gale’s definition of what constitutes an accidental discovery is incomplete. In this essay, I will describe Gale’s definition of an accidental discovery, and assess his argument as to why accidental discoveries can not be made in science. Then, I will present my own definition of an accidental discovery and argue that while Gale’s argument may be convincing, it does not thoroughly consider all types of accidental discoveries. Gale claims that “discoveries can happen only to those whose conceptual systems are somehow prepared to recognize what it …show more content…
Or, if one comes across something by accident, they will not recognize it, and thus will ignore it. For example, take Lavoisier’s discovery that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Gale would argue that Lavoisier would not have discovered or verified the composition of water if he had not posited it. In other words, if Lavoisier did not already have a preconceived notion of the substances which combine to form water, he would not have been able to discover them. Now, suppose that in a trial and error attempt to synthesize water, Lavoisier had left his assistant to combine carbon and hydrogen in an experiment, his hypothesis being: “when inflammable air, or hydrogen, is combined with carbon, the resulting substance is water). For the purpose of this example, suppose that the young assistant was not aware of this hypothesis, and in fact only knew that he was instructed to combine hydrogen and carbon. Furthermore, suppose that the assistant had only recently started working for Lavoisier (in …show more content…
To illustrate this form of discovery, consider the epic story of Lavoisier and his desperate assistant mentioned above. Using the same hypothesis, “when inflammable air, or hydrogen, is combined with carbon, the resulting substance is water), suppose that when it came time to verify this-this hypothesis, Lavoisier himself accidently combined oxygen and hydrogen, which yielded the expected result. In this case, Lavoisier did end up with the expected result, he just arrived there by accident. Being Lavoisier, he most likely noticed that oxygen and hydrogen react to each other in a way that he had not previously considered. Once Lavoisier took note of the reaction, he most likely did not ignore it or re-start his original experiment. Lavoisier’s logical response here would be to delve deeper into what he has just seen, to wonder what caused it, and then conduct more studies until he figures out what, if anything, he has