Experimental philosophy of biology: notes from the field (original) (raw)
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Philosophical issues in experimental biology
2006
Traditionally, studies in the philosophy of biology have been strongly centered on evolutionary biology and systematics. To be sure, during the last four decades the field of molecular biology has been subject to substantial philosophical discussion as well. Still, discussions of molecular biology have focused on questions peculiar to this field (such as the relation between classical and molecular genetics).
Fresh Perspectives on the Philosophy of Biology
BioScience, 2014
theories, and gene concepts up to date and casts a fresh perspective over the history of the field. The authors thoughtfully engage recent studies in several areas of philosophical and molecular genetics research. They chose not to address the relationship between the molecular biosciences and historical, evolutionary, and population biosciences, so in that sense, the book is not a comprehensive philosophy of the gene. Genetics and Philosophy's best contributions are its rich taxonomy of gene concepts, the concept of Crick information, the developmental niche concept articulated with arguments about molecular epigenesis and distributed specificity, and the updated critique of informational concepts in genetics and genomics.
Humana.Mente, 2020
The experimental practice in contemporary molecular biology oscillates between the creativity of the researcher in tinkering with the experimental system, and the necessity of standardization of methods of inquiry. Experimental procedures, when standardized in lab protocols, might definitely be seen as actual recipes. Considering these protocols as recipes can help us understand some epistemological characteristics of current practice in molecular biology. On the one hand, protocols represent a common ground, i.e. the possibility of reproducibility, which constitutes one of the essential properties for contemporary science to define an actual discovery. At the same time, however, protocols are flexible enough to be adapted by the individual researcher (within a space of maneuver given by the experimental system and by the practices that each individual discipline gives to itself) to his/her specific needs. These variations, just like the recipes, remind us that the legitimacy of an experimental practice, involves both objective and subjective constraints and it is articulated on a fuzzy background rather than a rigid and clear context. Moreover, looking at experiments according to this perspective can provide a key to understanding how different forms of science (which adopt different methodologies but which investigate the same phenomena), such as computational biology, are precisely different in the use of a different "cookbook". Indeed, given the procedural/operational realism of biologists towards phenomena, the clash of different procedures has opened a discussion also about the nature and the meaning of the obtained results. Thus, according to the recipe-perspective that, we propose a constructivist account arguing that the methodological struggle over the nature of biological phenomena (and their ways of discovery) among scientists, might be seen as a not always explicit, philosophical debate, however coming from the practice of science itself. †Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy.
Genes: Philosophical analyses put to the test
History and Philosophy of The Life Sciences, 2004
This paper describes one complete and one ongoing empirical study in which philosophical analyses of the concept of the gene were operationalized and tested using questionnaire data obtained from working biologists. These studies throw light on how different gene concepts contribute to biological research. Their aim is not to arrive at one or more correct 'definitions' of the gene, but rather to map out the variation in the gene concept and to explore its causes and its effects.
Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Biology : A Historical Review
FALSAFEH, The Iranian Journal of Philosophy, 2009
The philosophy of biology has existed as a distinct sub-discipline within the philosophy of science for about thirty years. The rapid growth of the field has mirrored that of the biological sciences in the same period. Today the discipline is well represented in the leading journals in philosophy of science, as well as in several specialist journals. There have been two generations of textbooks and the subject is regularly taught at undergraduate as well as graduate level. The current high profile of the biological sciences and the obvious philosophical issues that arise in fields as diverse as molecular genetics and conservation biology suggest that the philosophy of biology will remain an exciting field of enquiry for the foreseeable future.
Arguments for Experimentation in Biology
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 1986
It is our privilege to live in a time of almost unexampled progress in natural science ... because not long ago naturalists began to turn aside from historical problems in order to learn more of organisms as they now are. They began to ask themselves whether they had not been overemphasizing the problems of evolution at the cost of those presented by life-processes everywhere before our eyes today. They awoke to the insufficiency of their traditional methods of observation and comparison and they turned more and more to the method by which all the great conquests of physico-chemical science had been achieved, that which undertakes the analysis of phenomena by deliberate control of the conditions under which they take place-the method of experiment." (Wilson, 1915, p. 1). Wilson writes of the experimental method as providing leavening in all fields, so that zoology could move beyond its earlier restrictions on method and subject matter to
Recent Work in The Philosophy of Biology
2017
The biological sciences have always proven a fertile ground for philosophical analysis, one from which has grown a rich tradition stemming from Aristotle and flowering with Darwin. And although contemporary philosophy is increasingly becoming conceptually entwined with the study of the empirical sciences with the data of the latter now being regularly utilised in the establishment and defence of the frameworks of the former, a practice especially prominent in the philosophy of physics, the development of that tradition hasn't received the wider attention it so thoroughly deserves. This review will briefly introduce some recent significant topics of debate within the philosophy of biology, focusing on those whose metaphysical themes (in everything from composition to causation) are likely to be of wide-reaching, cross-disciplinary interest.