Historical contingency is commonly associated with unpredictability and outcome variability. As such, it can be seen as an undesirable aspect of experimental investigations. Many might agree that experimental methodologies that include enough control help to by-pass this problem and thereby make for more secure knowledge. Against this received view, we argue that, for at least some historically contingent processes, an over-emphasis on control might mislead by obscuring the very object of investigation or by preventing fruitful discoveries. In discussing cases from evolutionary biology, developmental biology, and geochemistry/astrophysics, we show how investigating through approaches that don’t prioritize environmental control, while allowing for greater variability of outcomes, better respects the object/environment entanglement of these systems. Finally, we defend the idea that, despite the lower level of control, these types of experiments do not have a lower epistemic value than more highly controlled experiments.

中文翻译：

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历史偶然过程实验研究中控制的矛盾性

历史偶然性通常与不可预测性和结果可变性相关。因此，它可以被视为实验研究的一个不受欢迎的方面。许多人可能同意，包含足够控制的实验方法有助于绕过这个问题，从而获得更安全的知识。与这种公认的观点相反，我们认为，至少对于某些历史上偶然的过程，过分强调控制可能会混淆调查的真正目标或阻止富有成果的发现，从而产生误导。在讨论进化生物学、发育生物学和地球化学/天体物理学的案例时，我们展示了如何通过不优先考虑环境控制的方法进行调查，同时允许更大的结果可变性，更好地尊重这些系统的对象/环境纠缠。