An agent-based conception of models and scientific representation

Giere, Ronald N.

doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9506-z

Cited by 215 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…On the contrary, keys can be highly conventional. This sharply distinguishes our account from accounts like Giere's (2004Giere's ( , 2010) and Weisberg's (2012Weisberg's ( , 2013) who take similarity (or at least purported similarity), in the relevant respects to the appropriate degrees, to be the relation between models and their targets. As discussed above, although keys can be the identity map, or a mapping between similar properties, this is not built into the account, and in this sense our account is more general that those based on the notion of similarity.…”

Section: Imputation and Keysmentioning

confidence: 89%

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The turn of the valve: representing with material models

Frigg¹,

Nguyen

2017

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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Many scientific models are representations. Building on Goodman and Elgin's notion of representation-as we analyse what this claim involves by providing a general definition of what makes something a scientific model and formulating a novel account of how models represent. We call the result the DEKI account of representation, which offers a complex kind of representation involving an interplay of denotation, exemplification, keying up of properties, and imputation. Throughout we focus on material models, and we illustrate our claims with the Phillips-Newlyn machine. In the conclusion we suggest that, mutatis mutandis, the DEKI account can be carried over to other kinds of models, notably fictional and mathematical models.

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Section: Imputation and Keysmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Frigg (2010a, b) and Godfrey-Smith (2006) provide outlines of what such an account could look like. 18 Developing the details of such an account and integrating it with the DEKI account of representation is a project for future research.…”

Section: Envoimentioning

confidence: 99%

The turn of the valve: representing with material models

Frigg¹,

Nguyen

2017

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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“…De hecho, Chamizo (2013) afirma que una de las principales actividades de los científicos es evaluar qué modelos se ajustan mejor a las evidencias disponibles, buscando la explicación más plausible para un cierto fenómeno (Chamizo, 2013;Driver, Newton y Osborne, 2000). A pesar de las innumerables definiciones de modelos científicos y de la diversidad de tipos de modelos científicos existentes, podemos decir, en términos globales, que un modelo científico es una representación de determinados aspectos del mundo, de acuerdo con un objetivo específico (Chamizo, 2010;Chamizo, 2013;Giere, 2010). Así, el modelo es una representación intencional y simplificada, ya que resulta de la intención, interpretación y conocimiento del científico.…”

Section: Los Modelos Científicosunclassified

“…Así, el modelo es una representación intencional y simplificada, ya que resulta de la intención, interpretación y conocimiento del científico. Teniendo en consideración la concepción intencional de la representación científica de Giere (2010), se hace evidente que existan modelos múltiples para estudiar diferentes aspectos del mismo sistema, ya que el científico selecciona los aspectos que pretende estudiar. Del mismo modo, también pueden existir diferentes modelos para estudiar el mismo aspecto del mundo, porque los científicos pueden tener ideas diferentes y pueden socorrerse de recursos distintos para construirlos (Oh y Oh, 2011).…”

Section: Los Modelos Científicosunclassified

Desarrollo y validación de un instrumento para analizar las visiones de los profesores sobre modelos

Torres¹,

Vasconcelos²

2017

Rev_Eureka_ensen_divulg_cienc

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Diversos estudios ponen de manifiesto que el uso de modelos y el recurso a actividades de modelización son fundamentales en la enseñanza de las ciencias. Sin embargo, también son varios los estudios que demuestran que los profesores de ciencias no revelan visiones adecuadas sobre los modelos en la ciencia y para la enseñanza de las ciencias. Este estudio, parte integrante de un proyecto más amplio, pretende presentar un instrumento (en forma de cuestionario) fundado en bases teóricas sólidas, desarrollado para analizar las visiones de los profesores sobre modelos y modelización. El instrumento se aplicó a diecisiete futuros profesores de ciencias, estudiantes del máster en enseñanza de la Biología y la Geología, quienes participaron de manera voluntaria en este estudio. El acuerdo entre los evaluadores y los datos de las entrevistas se usaron para validar el instrumento. Los resultados de los análisis muestran que el instrumento es capaz de revelar diferencias entre las visiones de los profesores y, que es posible llegar a un análisis profundo acerca de sus visiones sobre modelos en la ciencia y para la enseñanza a través del análisis conjunto de los datos (obtenidos por medio de las respuestas a los cuestionarios y a las entrevistas). El análisis de los datos da a conocer también que los futuros profesores de ciencias tienen visiones ingenuas sobre los modelos y que no valoran todas las potencialidades de los mismos en la enseñanza de las ciencias, sugiriendo la necesidad de mejorar sus visiones sobre estos aspectos. Development and validation of an instrument for analysing teachers' views about modelsMany studies reveal that models and modelling activities are fundamental in science teaching. However, there are also many studies that show that science teachers do not hold adequate views regarding models in science and for teaching. This study is part of a broader research and intends to present a theoretically grounded instrument (a questionnaire) developed for analysing the teachers' views about models and modelling. The instrument was applied to seventeen prospective science teachers, students of the master in Biology and Geology Teaching, which voluntarily participated in this study. Inter-rater agreement and data from interviews were used in order to validate the instrument. The result of the analysis show that the instrument is able to reveal differences among teachers' views and that it is possible to attain a deep analysis of their views regarding models in science and for teaching through the combined analysis of data (obtained through questionnaires and interviews). Data analysis also reveals that prospective science teachers hold naïve views regarding models and that they do not value all models potentials in science teaching, suggesting the need for improving prospective teachers' views regarding those aspects. IntroducciónAunque los modelos científicos sean muy diversos y presenten diferentes definiciones, su relevancia para el progreso del conocimiento científico es innegable. De hecho, si se pr...

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“…French & Ladyman, 1999)-that is precisely what the recent practice-oriented approaches to modeling and representation have sought to avoid (e.g. Giere, 2010;Knuuttila, 2005;Mäki, 2009;Suárez, 2010). It seems to us that the goal of highlighting the role of analogies in science is to make room for the constructive and imaginative moment of scientific reasoning; the different semantic-cum-structuralist accounts fixated on the structural relationships between the source and target systems fail to pay attention to this.…”

Section: ) Transient and Heterogeneous Nature Of Analogical Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of noise: Analogical reasoning in synthetic biology

Knuuttila

Loettgers

2014

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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Abstract:The picture of synthetic biology as a kind of engineering science has largely created the public understanding of this novel field, covering both its promises and risks. In this paper, we will argue that the actual situation is more nuanced and complex. Synthetic biology is a highly interdisciplinary field of research located at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology, and computational science. All of these fields provide concepts, metaphors, mathematical tools, and models, which are typically utilized by synthetic biologists by drawing analogies between the different fields of inquiry. We will study analogical reasoning in synthetic biology through the emergence of the functional meaning of noise, which marks an important shift in how engineering concepts are employed in this field. The notion of noise serves also to highlight the differences between the two branches of synthetic biology: the basic science-oriented branch and the engineering-oriented branch, which differ from each other in the way they draw analogies to various other fields of study. Moreover, we show that fixing the mapping between a source domain and the target domain seems not to be the goal of analogical reasoning in actual scientific practice.

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An agent-based conception of models and scientific representation

Cited by 215 publications

References 17 publications

The turn of the valve: representing with material models

The turn of the valve: representing with material models

Desarrollo y validación de un instrumento para analizar las visiones de los profesores sobre modelos

Varieties of noise: Analogical reasoning in synthetic biology

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