Johnson, Gregory
Theory has a central place in the traditional accounts of scientific practice. It’s less clear, however, what role theory has, and should have, in contemporary neuroscience. John Bickle argues that we should appreciate the central role that the development and use of experiment tools have in neuroscientific practice and the notable lack of an apparent need for theory. Call this the tools first method. I use two cases to assess Bickle’s assertion that the tools first method is always used in neuroscience. In the first—the use of gene targeting to investigate the relationship between memory and long-term potentiation—a well-defined theory did have a prominent role. In contrast, the second case, an optogenetic investigation of neurons in the extended amygdala, illustrates the application of Bickle’s tools first method.
The takeaway, then, is twofold. Although sometimes theory has a role, there are productive investigations in neurobiology that proceed without a theory as the starting point. This is, in part, a consequence of experiment tools that allow for ever more precise investigations of cellular and molecular processes. It is also a consequence of the explanatory goals in neurobiology, namely, the description of mechanisms. When these two consequences come together, there is no longer an apparent need for theories of the sort traditionally taken to be central to scientific practice.