ABSTRACT
There are rules governing the use of apparatus, the recording of data, and the proper reporting of measurements. The rules are social norms guiding the acquisition of bodies of information which D. Shapere has called "domains". For Shapere, a domain is a body of information about some believed-to-be related phenomena. Domains form the subject matter of scientific investigations. The system of rules which are norms for the practice of atomic spectroscopy include practical rules governing the use of the spectroscope, the optical theory which guides interpretation of the resulting spectroscopic lines as related to characteristic frequencies, and the chemical methods needed to prepare and identify samples. The rules of evidence specify the procedures and circumstances which warrant certain types of assertions. In the early development of his theory Bohr clearly had most in mind evidence from dispersion experiments, and from studies of molecules.
