
Publication details
Year: 2013
Pages: 4155-4179
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "Reducing the dauer larva", Synthese 190 (18), 2013, pp. 4155-4179.


Reducing the dauer larva
molecular models of biological phenomena in caenorhabditis elegans research
pp. 4155-4179
in: Synthese 190 (18), 2013.Abstract
One important aspect of biological explanation is detailed causal modeling of particular phenomena in limited experimental background conditions. Recognising this allows one to appreciate that a sufficient condition for a reduction in biology is a molecular model of (1) only the demonstrated causal parameters of a biological model and (2) only within a replicable experimental background. These identities—which are ubiquitous in biology and form the basis of ruthless reductions (Bickle, Philosophy and neuroscience: a ruthlessly reductive account, 2003)—are criticised as merely “local” (Sullivan, Synthese 167:511–539, 2009) or “fragmentary” (Schaffner, Synthese, 151(3):377–402, 2006). However, in an instructive case, a biological model is preserved in molecular terms, demonstrating a complex phenomenon that has been successfully reduced.
Publication details
Year: 2013
Pages: 4155-4179
Series: Synthese
Full citation:
, "Reducing the dauer larva", Synthese 190 (18), 2013, pp. 4155-4179.