Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
The proponents of this model argue that their neural model is well based on
the worm's neurophysiology but only weakly, at this point, on the organism's
neuroanatomy. Though both approaches use some of the tools of biophysics
and other mathematically sophisticated theories of physics, the manner of their
implementation is quite different from physics, but may be generalizable as an
approach for systems biology.
1.
INTRODUCTION: THE STRUCTURE OF BIOLOGICAL
THEORIES
Until quite recently, much of the analysis of theories in the biological and
biomedical sciences had subscribed to what I term the 'Euclidean Ideal'. This
notion assumes that the ideal structure of a scientific theory resembles Euclid's
approach to geometry: a small number of fundamental definitions and axioms
constitute the essence of a theory. The axioms are mathematically precise, and
are then elaborated deductively in the form of theorems and applications that
cover a broad (scientific) domain. This view of theory structure obtains fairly
strong support in the physical sciences, and is exemplified by Newton's theory of
gravitation and its elaboration in the Principia (1972 [1726]), by some treatments
of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory (see Stratton, 1941), thermodynamics, and
by quantum mechanics (see von Neumann, 1955). A similar orientation toward
general theory in biology also can be found in the work of von Bertalanffy on
'general systems theory' and his sets of multiple partial differential equations.
Biologists - especially those biologists seeking a methodological unity with
the physical sciences such as Waddington in his (1968) - and philosophers
of biology, such as the early Michael Ruse (1973), have maintained that the
laws and theories of biology have the exact same logical structure as do those
of the physical sciences (though recently there have been some changes - see
Kitcher (1984), Rosenberg (1985), Culp & Kitcher (1989), and van der Steen &
Kamminga (1991)). This simple unity view is only supportable if one restricts
one's attention to those few - but very important - theories in biology which
in point of fact have a very broad scope and are characterizable in their more
simplified forms as a set of 'laws' which admit of mathematically precise
axiomatization and deductive elaboration. Examples are certain formulations
of Mendelian genetics and of population genetics. I maintain that a deeper
analysis of even these theories, however, will disclose difficulties with a strong
methodological parallelism with the physical sciences (see Schaffner, 1980,
1986; Kitcher, 1984). I believe that a close examination of a wide variety
of other biological theories in immunology, physiology, embryology, and the
neurosciences will suggest that the typical theory in the biomedical sciences is
a structure of overlapping interlevel causal temporal prototypical models.
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