Abstract
Mechanisms are organized systems of parts that operate in such a way as to produce phenomena. It would seem, however, that mechanistic explanations can be indefinitely detailed and expanded by bottoming out at lower levels of composition and by taking into consideration higher-level systems. Given the possibility of an indefinite descent to lower levels of composition, how deep does one need to go in order to claim that the explanation satisfactorily accounts for the phenomenon of interest? And given the possibility of a progressive integration into more holistic contexts, how far one needs to go in order to claim that the mechanism described in the explanation acts as an independent module capable of producing the phenomenon on its own? I argue that the answer to these questions lies in the elaboration of norms for evaluating the completeness of mechanistic explanations.
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Notes
- 1.
In biology, the reductionism debate is primarily about the relationship between molecular biology and other branches of biology, such as classical genetics [e.g., (Waters 1990) vs. (Kitcher 1984)] and developmental biology [e.g., (Rosenberg 2006) vs. (Oyama 1985)]. In the contemporary literature, reductionists agree that a mechanistic explanation does not need to bottom down at the most fundamental building blocks of physical reality, and that a satisfactory explanation can be articulated at the level of molecular interactions. Likewise, even the most fervent proponents of antireductionism agree that some, but not all contexts, and certainly not the totality of the universe, are important for understanding biological phenomena. If there is a resistance to molecular or genetic reductionism, the concern is that certain features of the cell, organism or the direct environment of an organism have been neglected. It is within these boundaries that the issue of reductionism is considered here.
- 2.
The organicist debate that raged in the nineteenth century biology centered on the claim that living things are organic wholes that cannot be decomposed into a set of independent mechanisms. Critics of molecular biology and its methods often appeal organicist arguments to defend more holistic approaches, and part of the manifesto of systems biology is precisely to provide a more holistic understanding of life. Contemporary echoes of this debate can be found in Nicholson (2013).
- 3.
Mathematical modeling is by no means a novel practice in biology. The Hodgkin-Huxley model of the action potential, the Michaelis-Menten model of enzyme kinetics, and Knudson’s two-hit model of cancer development made use of theoretical tools in order to demonstrate that biological and biochemical phenomena can be accounted for as consequences of laws or rules governing the behavior of certain systems. These same models played an important role in guiding the subsequent elucidation of the molecular mechanisms. More recently, mathematical models have been used to account for quantitative-dynamic features of phenomena meant to complement traditional qualitative descriptions of mechanisms (Baetu 2015; Bechtel 2012; Bechtel and Abrahamsen 2010; Brigandt 2013). In such cases, mathematical models act as in silico surrogates for investigating the properties of systems they model (Baetu 2014).
- 4.
Klipp (2005, 8–9) makes a clear distinction between ‘black-box’ input-output correlations and realistic models in which known mechanistic details are taken into account: “It must be noted that different system structures may produce similar system behavior (output). The structure determines the behavior, not the other way around. Therefore the system output is often not sufficient to predict the internal organization […] The intention of modeling is to answer particular questions. Modeling is, therefore, a subjective and selective procedure. It may, for example, aim at predicting the system output. In this case it might be sufficient to obtain precise input-output relation, while the system internals can be regarded as black box. However, if the function of an object is to be elucidated, then its structure and the relations between its parts must be described realistically”.
- 5.
For a more detailed discussion, see (Baetu 2015).
- 6.
This occurs, for example, when complementary mutations in several components rescue the wild-type phenotype.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a generous fellowship from the KLI Institute. I thank Stuart Glennan, Mathieu Charbonneau, Dan Nicholson, Maarten Boudry, Argyris Arnellos, Laura Nuño de la Rosa and Michael Rammerstorfer for their much appreciated input.
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Băetu, T.M. (2015). When Is a Mechanistic Explanation Satisfactory? Reductionism and Antireductionism in the Context of Mechanistic Explanations. In: Pȃrvu, I., Sandu, G., Toader, I. (eds) Romanian Studies in Philosophy of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 313. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16655-1_16
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