Narratives of contingency and practices of comparing in the emergence of German molecular genetics (1958–1968)

This article explores the emergence of molecular approaches in German genetic research during the 1958–1968 decade as a period of contingency and alternative possibilities. We introduce “Narratives of Contingency” as an analytical framework to examine how scientists construct a specific narrative - linking past experiences with expectations of future conditions - in order to outline and navigate pathway-decisions in the present.

We apply this framework to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's developmental model of molecular genetics and illustrate how the stages he identifies - the direction of the field, institutional developments, and epistemological demarcations - were already central themes in the comparative practices underlying narratives of contingency in this early period. Narratives of contingency can thus serve as a systematic framework for analyzing the processes through which new scientific fields, institutions, and epistemic horizons emerge, and possibly also for identifying historically plausible fork moments or alternative pathways not taken.