Measurement in biology is methodized by theory

Abstract

We characterize access to empirical objects in biology from a theoretical perspective. Unlike objects in current physical theories, biological objects are the result of a history and their variations continue to generate a history. This property is the starting point of our concept of measurement. We argue that biological measurement is relative to a natural history which is shared by the different objects subjected to the measurement and is more or less constrained by biologists. We call symmetrization the theoretical and often concrete operation which leads to considering biological objects as equivalent in a measurement. Last, we use our notion of measurement to analyze research strategies. Some strategies aim to bring biology closer to the epistemology of physical theories, by studying objects as similar as possible, while others build on biological diversity.

The limits of replicability

“…The special status of the entities biology studies is also emphasised by Maël Montévil, who analyses the concept of 'measurement' in biology in the context of the replication crisis (Montévil 2019). He points out that the behaviour of systems analysed in physics is guided by an invariant underlying structure that can be captured in mathematical terms.…”

“…They highlight the fact that some types of entities are fundamentally time-dependent and that this interferes with the idea of uniformity that underlies the replicability ideal. Some authors, such as Nadin (2018) and Montévil (2019), link these features explicitly to living systems, whereas others talk more generally of 'irreversible' or 'interactive' entities.…”

“…Interestingly, most of the accounts that I discussed in section 4.2 don't leave room for such an extension, as they insist on using the living/non-living distinction as a demarcation criterion. Montévil (2019), for instance, explicitly excludes biochemistry from the problems biological measurement faces. Nadin (2018) also seems to exclude the physico-chemical realm of peptides and other molecules from the problems living systems pose.…”

The Identity of Organisms in Scientific Practice: Integrating Historical and Relational Conceptions

“…The complexity of biological organisms vis-à-vis identity is the acknowledged difficulty of treating particular organisms as instances of the same experimental object, and of subsuming them under the relevant classes (Agutter and Wheatley, 2004;Bookstein, 2009;Montévil, 2019a). Several reasons seem to play a role in explaining such difficulty.…”

“…As we will discuss, each conception is open to different interpretations of identity, going from more restrictive to more inclusive ones. For instance, evolutionary taxa also stem from a genealogical conception, but these classes are much more inclusive than the ones which are relevant for most experimental practices, where biologists deal with strains rather than species or higher ranks (see Montévil, 2019a, for a discussion and detailed examples). Importantly, the distinction between the genealogical and relational conceptions does not map onto the distinction between diachronic and synchronic identity, which means that each conception can be applied to characterize both the synchronic and diachronic identity of organisms.…”