Multiscale Models for Vertebrate Limb Development

A common reductionist assumption is that macro-scale behaviors can be described "bottom-up" if only sufficient details about lower-scale processes are available. The view that an "ideal" or "fundamental" physics would be sufficient to explain all macro-scale phenomena has been met with criticism from philosophers of biology. Specifically, scholars have pointed to the impossibility of deducing biological explanations from physical ones, and to the irreducible nature of distinctively biological processes such as gene regulation and evolution. This paper takes a step back in asking whether bottom-up modeling is feasible even when modeling simple physical systems across scales. By comparing examples of multi-scale modeling in physics and biology, we argue that the "tyranny of scales" problem presents a challenge to reductive explanations in both physics and biology. The problem refers to the scale-dependency of physical and biological behaviors that forces researchers to combine different models relying on different scale-specific mathematical strategies and boundary conditions. Analyzing the ways in which different models are combined in multi-scale modeling also has implications for the relation between physics and biology. Contrary to the assumption that physical science approaches provide reductive explanations in biology, we exemplify how inputs from physics often reveal the importance of macro-scale models and explanations. We illustrate this through an examination of the role of biomechanics modeling in developmental biology. In such contexts, the relation between models at different scales and from different disciplines is neither reductive nor completely autonomous, but interdependent.

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“…by drawing on a matrix describing a vector field). (Hatzikirou and Deutsch, 2011;Lesne, 2013;Newman et al 2011). …”

Section: Understanding Living Systems Across Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis

Green

Batterman

2017

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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“…These forces are opposed by the long-range elasticity of the ECM (long-range inhibition). Short-range contractility and longrange rigidity can generate periodic ECM displacements and cell condensations in silico, and have been proposed to generate periodic condensations in an in vitro model of chondrogenesis (Murray, 2003;Murray and Oster, 1984a,b;Newman et al, 2008).…”

Section: Mechanical Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematically guided approaches to distinguish models of periodic patterning

Hiscock

Megason

2015

Development

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How periodic patterns are generated is an open question. A number of mechanisms have been proposed -most famously, Turing's reactiondiffusion model. However, many theoretical and experimental studies focus on the Turing mechanism while ignoring other possible mechanisms. Here, we use a general model of periodic patterning to show that different types of mechanism (molecular, cellular, mechanical) can generate qualitatively similar final patterns. Observation of final patterns is therefore not sufficient to favour one mechanism over others. However, we propose that a mathematical approach can help to guide the design of experiments that can distinguish between different mechanisms, and illustrate the potential value of this approach with specific biological examples.

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“…In addition to a plethora of fossil studies and experimental investigations in extant species (e.g., chicken), the formation of the broadest aspects of the shape of different skeletal elements and their basic spatial position has been mathematically modeled using activator-inhibitor systems (Hentschel et al 2004;Newman et al 2008;Newman and Müller 2005). This basic skeletal pattern in the adult organism is a fairly qualitative phenomenon and its developmental explanation involves quantitative models.…”

Section: Mathematical Models Of the Origin Of Morphological Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary Developmental Biology and the Limits of Philosophical Accounts of Mechanistic Explanation

Brigandt

2015

History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences

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Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is considered a 'mechanistic science,' in that it causally explains morphological evolution in terms of changes in developmental mechanisms. Evo-devo is also an interdisciplinary and integrative approach, as its explanations use contributions from many fields and pertain to different levels of organismal organization. Philosophical accounts of mechanistic explanation are currently highly prominent, and have been particularly able to capture the integrative nature of multifield and multilevel explanations. However, I argue that evo-devo demonstrates the need for a broadened philosophical conception of mechanisms and mechanistic explanation.Mechanistic explanation (in terms of the qualitative interactions of the structural parts of a whole) has been developed as an alternative to the traditional idea of explanation as derivation from laws or quantitative principles. Against the picture promoted by Carl Craver, that mathematical models describe but usually do not explain, my discussion of cases from the strand of evo-devo which is concerned with developmental processes points to qualitative phenomena where quantitative mathematical models are an indispensable part of the explanation. While philosophical accounts have focused on the actual organization and operation of mechanisms, properties of developmental mechanisms that are about how a mechanism reacts to modifications are of major evolutionary significance, including robustness, phenotypic plasticity, and modularity. A philosophical conception of mechanisms is needed that takes into account quantitative changes, transient entities and the generation of novel types of entities, feedback loops and complex interaction networks, emergent properties, and, in particular, functional-dynamical aspects of mechanisms, including functional (as opposed to structural) organization and distributed, system-wide phenomena. I conclude with general remarks on philosophical accounts of explanation.

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Multiscale Models for Vertebrate Limb Development

Cited by 48 publications

References 73 publications

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis

Biology meets physics: Reductionism and multi-scale modeling of morphogenesis

Mathematically guided approaches to distinguish models of periodic patterning

Evolutionary Developmental Biology and the Limits of Philosophical Accounts of Mechanistic Explanation

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