Part-whole science

Winther, Rasmus Grønfeldt

doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9647-0

Cited by 44 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…An important aspect of discovering mechanisms and explaining in terms of mechanisms is to decompose a whole system into explanatorily relevant parts (Bechtel and Richardson 1993;Winther 2011), and to understand both the specific spatial and temporal organization of a mechanism that enables it to produce the phenomenon to be explained. This has implications for science pedagogy.…”

Section: Explanation In Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Explanation in Biology: Reduction, Pluralism, and Explanatory Aims

Brigandt

2011

Sci & Educ

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This essay analyzes and develops recent views about explanation in biology. Philosophers of biology have parted with the received deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation primarily by attempting to capture actual biological theorizing and practice. This includes an endorsement of different kinds of explanation (e.g., mathematical and causal-mechanistic), a joint study of discovery and explanation, and an abandonment of models of theory reduction in favor of accounts of explanatory reduction. Of particular current interest are philosophical accounts of complex explanations that appeal to different levels of organismal organization and use contributions from different biological disciplines. The essay lays out one model that views explanatory integration across different disciplines as being structured by scientific problems. I emphasize the philosophical need to take the explanatory aims pursued by different groups of scientists into account, as explanatory aims determine whether different explanations are competing or complementary and govern the dynamics of scientific practice, including interdisciplinary research. I distinguish different kinds of pluralism that philosophers have endorsed in the context of explanation in biology, and draw several implications for science education, especially the need to teach science as an interdisciplinary and dynamic practice guided by scientific problems and explanatory aims.

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Section: Explanation In Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Explanation in Biology: Reduction, Pluralism, and Explanatory Aims

Brigandt

2011

Sci & Educ

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“…However, Rasmus Winther (2006) distinguishes between compositional biology (which produces explanations in terms of the parts of a whole) and formal biology (which explains using mathematical theories) as distinct styles of theorizing used in different fields (but see Winther 2011). As one of the main developers of accounts of mechanistic explanation, Carl Craver (2006Craver ( , 2007Craver ( , 2008 has gone so far as to claim that while mathematical models are widely used and indeed represent and predict, unlike mechanistic accounts they typically do not explain.…”

Section: Explanatory Relevance and How Mathematical Models Can Mechanmentioning

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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“…Laboratory populations could be further compared with other "concrete models" such as "remnant models" in the museum (Griesemer, 1990(Griesemer, , 1991, "model organisms" (Ankeny & Leonelli, 2011) or "compositional models" (Winther, 2006b(Winther, , 2011 in the laboratory, and "scale models" in engineering (Weisberg, 2013). The main lesson for us is that laboratory populations represent natural populations imperfectly and serve as limited instantiations of theoretical populations.…”

Section: Park On Laboratory Populationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mind, the lab, and the field: Three kinds of populations in scientific practice

Winther

Giordano

Edge

et al. 2015

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

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a b s t r a c tScientists use models to understand the natural world, and it is important not to conflate model and nature. As an illustration, we distinguish three different kinds of populations in studies of ecology and evolution: theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations, exemplified by the work of R. A. Fisher, Thomas Park, and David Lack, respectively. Biologists are rightly concerned with all three types of populations. We examine the interplay between these different kinds of populations, and their pertinent models, in three examples: the notion of "effective" population size, the work of Thomas Park on Tribolium populations, and model-based clustering algorithms such as Structure. Finally, we discuss ways to move safely between three distinct population types while avoiding confusing models and reality.Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical SciencesWhat are the relationships among the populations that biologists postulate in idealized theoretical models, the populations they set up in experimental laboratories, and the populations they survey and sample in the wild? We describe three qualitatively different kinds of populations at the heart of distinct styles of scientific practice in ecology and evolution, viz., theoretical, laboratory, and field investigations. Distinguishing three types of populationsdtheoretical, laboratory, and naturaldprovides a useful lens for viewing both past and contemporary work in ecology and evolutionary biology.Three examples illustrate the value of distinguishing theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations: the concept of "effective" population size, the work of Thomas Park on flour beetle populations, and the use of model-based genetic clustering algorithms such as Structure. In keeping with the "Genomics and Philosophy of Race" theme of the special issue in which this article appears, our trichotomy can assist analyses of the implications of genomic studies for claims about the existence (or the non-existence) of human races. In the conclusion, we suggest ways to avoid conflating the three kinds of populations. Researchers can cycle through natural, laboratory, and theoretical populations, expressing genuine interest in each population type. Theoretical, laboratory, and natural populations also pertain to fields beyond ecology and evolution, including statistics.We analyze scientific practice. Although questions regarding realism and anti-realism, the concepteworld relation, and the general ontology of science lurk, our trichotomy is not intended as a rubric for determining how much a model does or does not correspond to reality. Admittedly, an overarching aim of population biology is to understand the complex structure and dynamics of populations "in the wild." Even so, the multiple ontologies of scientific practice are complexdarguably there is a world in a theoretical model (e.g., Morgan, 2012) or in an experimental system (e.g., Leon...

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Part-whole science

Cited by 44 publications

References 89 publications

Explanation in Biology: Reduction, Pluralism, and Explanatory Aims

Explanation in Biology: Reduction, Pluralism, and Explanatory Aims

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

The mind, the lab, and the field: Three kinds of populations in scientific practice

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