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  1. Strategies of Explanatory Abstraction in Molecular Systems Biology.Nicholaos Jones - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (5):955-968.
    I consider three explanatory strategies from recent systems biology that are driven by mathematics as much as mechanistic detail. Analysis of differential equations drives the first strategy; topological analysis of network motifs drives the second; mathematical theorems from control engineering drive the third. I also distinguish three abstraction types: aggregations, which simplify by condensing information; generalizations, which simplify by generalizing information; and structurations, which simplify by contextualizing information. Using a common explanandum as reference point—namely, the robust perfect adaptation of chemotaxis (...)
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  • Organizing principles as tools for bridging the gap between system theory and biological experimentation.Constantinos Mekios - 2016 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 38 (1):65-89.
    Twentieth-century theoretical efforts towards the articulation of general system properties came short of having the significant impact on biological practice that their proponents envisioned. Although the latter did arrive at preliminary mathematical formulations of such properties, they had little success in showing how these could be productively incorporated into the research agenda of biologists. Consequently, the gap that kept system-theoretic principles cut-off from biological experimentation persisted. More recently, however, simple theoretical tools have proved readily applicable within the context of systems (...)
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  • Constraint‐Based Reasoning for Search and Explanation: Strategies for Understanding Variation and Patterns in Biology.Sara Green & Nicholaos Jones - 2016 - Dialectica 70 (3):343-374.
    Life scientists increasingly rely upon abstraction-based modeling and reasoning strategies for understanding biological phenomena. We introduce the notion of constraint-based reasoning as a fruitful tool for conceptualizing some of these developments. One important role of mathematical abstractions is to impose formal constraints on a search space for possible hypotheses and thereby guide the search for plausible causal models. Formal constraints are, however, not only tools for biological explanations but can be explanatory by virtue of clarifying general dependency-relations and patterning between (...)
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  • Revisiting generality in biology: systems biology and the quest for design principles.Sara Green - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (5):629-652.
    Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles. I revisit this question in light of the quest for design principles in systems biology and show that different views can be reconciled if we distinguish between different types of generality. The philosophical literature has primarily focused on generality of specific models or explanations, or on the heuristic role of abstraction. This paper takes a different (...)
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  • Scientific knowledge in the age of computation.Sophia Efstathiou, Rune Nydal, Astrid LÆgreid & Martin Kuiper - 2019 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 34 (2):213-236.
    With increasing publication and data production, scientific knowledge presents not simply an achievement but also a challenge. Scientific publications and data are increasingly treated as resources that need to be digitally ‘managed.’ This gives rise to scientific Knowledge Management : second-order scientific work aiming to systematically collect, take care of and mobilise first-hand disciplinary knowledge and data in order to provide new first-order scientific knowledge. We follow the work of Leonelli, Efstathiou and Hislop in our analysis of the use of (...)
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  • Revisiting generality in the life sciences: Systems biology and the quest for general principles.Sara Green - unknown
    Due to the variation, contingency and complexity of living systems, biology is often taken to be a science without fundamental theories, laws or general principles. I revisit this question in light of the quest for design principles in systems biology and show that different views can be reconciled if we distinguish between different types of generality. The philosophical literature has primarily focused on generality of specific models or explanations, or on the heuristic role of abstraction. This paper takes a different (...)
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  • Modeling systems-level dynamics: Understanding without mechanistic explanation in integrative systems biology.Miles MacLeod & Nancy J. Nersessian - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 49:1-11.
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  • Scientific knowledge in the age of computation: Explicated, computable and manageable?Sophia Efstathiou, Rune Nydal, Astrid Laegreid & Martin Kuiper - 2019 - Theoria. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 34 (2):213.
    We have two theses about scientific knowledge in the age of computation. Our general claim is that scientific Knowledge Management practices emerge as second-order practices whose aim is to systematically collect, take care of and mobilise first-hand disciplinary knowledge and data. Our specific thesis is that knowledge management practices are transforming biological research in at least three ways. We argue that scientific Knowledge Management a. operates with founded concepts of biological knowledge as explicated and computable, b. enables new outputs and (...)
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