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  1. Explanations of exceptions in biology: corrective asymmetry versus autonomy.Jani Raerinne - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):5073-5092.
    It is often argued that biological generalizations have a distinctive and special status by comparison with the generalizations of other natural sciences, such as that biological generalizations are riddled with exceptions defying systematic and simple treatment. This special status of biology is used as a premise in arguments that posit a deprived explanatory, nomological, or methodological status in the biological sciences. I will discuss the traditional and still almost universally held idea that the biological sciences cannot deal with exceptions and (...)
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  • Fundamental laws and laws of biology.Pablo Lorenzano - 2006 - In Gerhard Ernst & Karl-Georg Niebergall (eds.), Philosophie der Wissenschaft – Wissenschaft der Philosophie. Festschrift für C.Ulises Moulines zum 60. Geburstag. Mentis. pp. 129-155.
    In this paper, I discuss the problem of scientific laws in general and laws of biology in particular. After reviewing the debate around the existence of laws in biology, I examine the subject in the light of the structuralist notion of a fundamental law and argue for the law of matching as the fundamental law of genetics.
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  • Towards disciplinary disintegration in biology.Wim J. Steen - 1993 - Biology and Philosophy 8 (3):259-275.
    Interdisciplinary integration has fundamental limitations. This is not sufficiently realized in science and in philosophy. Concerning scientific theories there are many examples of pseudo-integration which should be unmasked by elementary philosophical analysis. For example, allegedly over-arching theories of stress which are meant to unite biology and psychology, upon analysis, turn out to represent terminological rather than substantive unity. They should be replaced by more specific, local theories. Theories of animal orientation, likewise, have been formulated in unduly general terms. A natural (...)
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  • Evolutionary epistemology as an overlapping, interlevel theory.Valerie Gray Hardcastle - 1993 - Biology and Philosophy 8 (2):173-192.
    I examine the branch of evolutionary epistemology which tries to account for the character of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans by extending the biological theory of evolution to the neurophysiological substrates of cognition. Like Plotkin, I construe this branch as a struggling science, and attempt to characterize the sort of theory one might expect to find this truly interdisciplinary endeavor, an endeavor which encompasses not only evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and developmental neuroscience, but also and especially, the computational modeling (...)
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  • Evolutionary anti-reductionism: Historical reflections. [REVIEW]John Beatty - 1990 - Biology and Philosophy 5 (2):199-210.
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  • Genes, behavior, and developmental emergentism: One process, indivisible?Kenneth F. Schaffner - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (2):209-252.
    The question of the influence of genes on behavior raises difficult philosophical and social issues. In this paper I delineate what I call the Developmentalist Challenge (DC) to assertions of genetic influence on behavior, and then examine the DC through an indepth analysis of the behavioral genetics of the nematode, C. elegans, with some briefer references to work on Drosophila. I argue that eight "rules" relating genes and behavior through environmentally-influenced and tangled neural nets capture the results of developmental and (...)
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  • Selection type theories.Lindley Darden & Joseph A. Cain - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (1):106-129.
    Selection type theories solve adaptation problems. Natural selection, clonal selection for antibody production, and selective theories of higher brain function are examples. An abstract characterization of typical selection processes is generated by analyzing and extending previous work on the nature of natural selection. Once constructed, this abstraction provides a useful tool for analyzing the nature of other selection theories and may be of use in new instances of theory construction. This suggests the potential fruitfulness of research to find other theory (...)
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  • Reduction, explanatory extension, and the mind/brain sciences.Valerie Gray Hardcastle - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (3):408-28.
    In trying to characterize the relationship between psychology and neuroscience, the trend has been to argue that reductionism does not work without suggesting a suitable substitute. I offer explanatory extension as a good model for elucidating the complex relationship among disciplines which are obviously connected but which do not share pragmatic explanatory features. Explanatory extension rests on the idea that one field can "illuminate" issues that were incompletely treated in another. In this paper, I explain how this "illumination" would work (...)
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  • Laws, Models, and Theories in Biology: A Unifying Interpretation.Pablo Lorenzano - 2020 - In Lorenzo Baravalle & Luciana Zaterka (eds.), Life and Evolution, History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences. Springer. pp. 163-207.
    Three metascientific concepts that have been object of philosophical analysis are the concepts oflaw, model and theory. The aim ofthis article is to present the explication of these concepts, and of their relationships, made within the framework of Sneedean or Metatheoretical Structuralism (Balzer et al. 1987), and of their application to a case from the realm of biology: Population Dynamics. The analysis carried out will make it possible to support, contrary to what some philosophers of science in general and of (...)
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  • Introducción: Modelos y teorías en biología.Pablo Lorenzano - 2016 - Metatheoria – Revista de Filosofía E Historia de la Ciencia 6:5--46.
    Two metascientific concepts that have been ― and still are ― object of philosophical analysis are the concepts of model and theory. But while the concept of scientific theory was one of the concepts to which philosophers of science devoted most attention during the 20th century, it is only in recent decades that the concept of scientific model has come to occupy a central position in philosophical reflection. However, it has done so in such a way that, at present, as (...)
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  • Philosophy of immunology.Bartlomiej Swiatczak & Alfred I. Tauber - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2020.
    Philosophy of immunology is a subfield of philosophy of biology dealing with ontological and epistemological issues related to the studies of the immune system. While speculative investigations and abstract analyses have always been part of immune theorizing, until recently philosophers have largely ignored immunology. Yet the implications for understanding the philosophical basis of organismal functions framed by immunity offer new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology and medicine. Developed in the context of history of medicine, theoretical biology, and medical anthropology, (...)
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  • Reduction: the Cheshire cat problem and a return to roots.Kenneth F. Schaffner - 2006 - Synthese 151 (3):377-402.
    In this paper, I propose two theses, and then examine what the consequences of those theses are for discussions of reduction and emergence. The first thesis is that what have traditionally been seen as robust, reductions of one theory or one branch of science by another more fundamental one are a largely a myth. Although there are such reductions in the physical sciences, they are quite rare, and depend on special requirements. In the biological sciences, these prima facie sweeping reductions (...)
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  • The End of Modern Medicine: Biomedical Science Under a Microscope.Laurence Foss - 2001 - State University of New York Press.
    Proposes a radically reconfigured medical model centered on mind-body interaction.
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  • Classical genetics and the theory-net of genetics.Pablo Lorenzano - 2000 - In Joseph D. Sneed, Wolfgang Balzer & C.-U. Moulines (eds.), Structuralist Knowledge Representation: Paradigmatic Examples. Rodopi. pp. 75-251.
    This article presents a reconstruction of the so-called classical, formal or Mendelian genetics, which is intended to be more complete and adequate than existing reconstructions. This reconstruction has been carried out with the instruments, duly modified and extended with respect to the case under consideration, of the structuralist conception of theories. The so-called Mendel’s Laws, as well as linkage genetics and gene mapping are formulated in a precise manner while the global structure of genetics is represented as a theory-net. These (...)
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  • Exemplars, models and principles in classical genetics.Pablo Lorenzano - 2005 - In José Luis Falguera, Concha Martínez & José Miguel Sagüillo (eds.), Current Topics in Logic and Analytic Philosophy/Temas actuales de Lógica y Filosofía Analítica. University of Santiago de Compostela. pp. 89-102.
    Taking as starting point Kuhn’s analysis of science textbooks and its application to Sinnott and Dunn’s (1925), it will be discussed the problem of the existence of laws in biology. In particular, it will be showed, in accordance with the proposals of Darden (1991) and Schaffner (1980, 1986, 1993), the relevance of the exemplars, diagrammatically or graphically represented, in the way in which is carried out the teaching and learning process of classical genetics, inasmuch as the information contained in them, (...)
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  • The structure of evolutionary theory: A semantic approach.Not By Me - 1983 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 14 (3):215-229.
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  • Theory structure, reduction, and disciplinary integration in biology.Kenneth F. Schaffner - 1993 - Biology and Philosophy 8 (3):319-347.
    This paper examines the nature of theory structure in biology and considers the implications of those theoretical structures for theory reduction. An account of biological theories as interlevel prototypes embodying causal sequences, and related to each other by strong analogies, is presented, and examples from the neurosciences are provided to illustrate these middle-range theories. I then go on to discuss several modifications of Nagel''s classical model of theory reduction, and indicate at what stages in the development of reductions these models (...)
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  • Gr nbaum and psychoanalysis.Margaret Nash - 1989 - Philosophical Psychology 2 (3):325 – 343.
    This paper argues that Adolf Gr nbaum's evaluation of the scientific status of psychoanalysis is marred by its failure to locate Freud's notion of natural science. Contrary to his claims, Griinbaum does not assess Freud's theory on Freud's own terms. The presuppositions that Griinbaum brings to the question of the scientific status of psychoanalysis are problematic and his criticisms and methodological restrictions may not be defensible when psychoanalysis is taken to develop methodologically out of medical science rather than out of (...)
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  • Middle-range theory in historical archaeology.Peter Kosso - 1993 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 24 (2):163-184.
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  • Towards disciplinary disintegration in biology.Wim J. Van Der Steen - 1993 - Biology and Philosophy 8 (3):259-275.
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  • Model organisms and behavioral genetics: A rejoinder.Kenneth F. Schaffner - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (2):276-288.
    In this rejoinder to the three preceding comments, I provide some additional philosophical warrant for the biomedical sciences' focus on model organisms. I then relate the inquiries on model systems to the concept of 'deep homology', and indicate that the issues that appear to divide my commentators and myself are in part empirical ones. I cite recent work on model organisms, and especially C. elegans that supports my views. Finally, I briefly readdress some of the issues raised by Developmental Systems (...)
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  • Commentary on Simon 's paper on “machine discovery”.Margaret Boden - 1995 - Foundations of Science 1 (2):201-224.
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  • Laws and Natural History in Biology.Wim J. Van Der Steen & Harmke Kamminga - 1991 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42 (4):445-467.
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