Darwinian demons and the logic of scientific discovery

The purpose of this article is to show that the local frames of scientific discoveries that allow only limited generalizations are not necessarily an obstacle to the construction of a methodology of scientific discovery and that our understanding of scientific rationality need not be limited to Reichenbachian context of justification. The subject of the analysis is one of the most important discoveries in evolutionary biology, the discovery of the evolutionary mechanism of aging. I aim to show how the use of mental modeling was significant to this discovery. I also consider the question whether the case studies can help us understand scientific discovery in general.