ABSTRACT
In Chapter 9, Anya Plutynski draws on pluralist, pragmatic, and perspectival ideas in addressing the relations between different theories, models, and research traditions in cancer research. She objects to the common narrative of scientific change which sees theories and so on in competition, where one theory “vanquishes” and succeeds another. This narrative has been pushed at times in cancer research, recently, for example, in Laplane’s book Cancer Stem Cells, which forms Plutynski’s main case study. Laplane opposes her favored cancer stem cells (CSC) theory against the “classical theory.” Plutynski, however, shows that Laplane gives a false dichotomy, for the adversarial opposition of these two theories is not based on practice-based matters of fact. Theories in cancer research are, she urges, complementary, not in conflict.
