The strong and weak senses of theory-ladenness of experimentation: Theory-driven versus exploratory experiments in the history of high-energy particle physics

Abstract

Argument In the theory-dominated view of scientific experimentation, all relations of theory and experiment are taken on a par; namely, that experiments are performed solely to ascertain the conclusions of scientific theories. As a result, different aspects of experimentation and of the relations of theory to experiment remain undifferentiated. This in turn fosters a notion of theory-ladenness of experimentation (TLE) that is too coarse-grained to accurately describe the relations of theory and experiment in scientific practice. By contrast, in this article, I suggest that TLE should be understood as an umbrella concept that has different senses. To this end, I introduce a three-fold distinction among the theories of high-energy particle physics (HEP) as background theories, model theories, and phenomenological models. Drawing on this categorization, I contrast two types of experimentation, namely, theory-driven and exploratory experiments, and I distinguish between the weak and strong senses of TLE in the context of scattering experiments from the history of HEP. This distinction enables identifying the exploratory character of the deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering experiments - performed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) between the years 1967 and 1973 - thereby shedding light on a crucial phase of the history of HEP, namely, the discovery of scaling, which was the decisive step towards the construction of quantum chromo-dynamics as a gauge theory of strong interactions. © 2013 Cambridge University Press.