good science?

[Michael L. Perdue]

I must also admit some confusion on "good science" as the quest to disprove 
hypotheses.  Was Temin really trying to disprove the "central dogma" or 
was he just a young virologist interested in knowing everything he could 
about these interesting retroviruses?  His hypothesis, I would assume, was 
NOT that DNA makes RNA makes Protein, but rather that the virus with 
which he was working was going through a DNA intermediate during its' 
replication.  He set about to support his hypothesis by designing 
experiments to REVEAL the presence of an enzyme which could transcribe 
RNA into DNA, not to disprove the idea that this virus was making DNA, he 
already had lots of evidence and people to tell him that.  So which 
hypothesis was he trying to prove or disprove and was it good science and 
if it was bad science, how come he got a prize?

Michael L. Perdue, Ph.D.
Athens, Georgia  30605
Ph: 706-546-3435
Fx: 706-546-3161
mperdue at asrr.arsusda.gov