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Organism and Character Decomposition: Steps Towards an Integrative Theory of Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Manfred D. Laubichler  and
Günter P. Wagner
Manfred D. Laubichler*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Günter P. Wagner
Affiliation:
Yale University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 165 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511
*
†Send requests for reprints to Manfred D. Laubichler, Program in History of Science, 129 Dickinson Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; e-mail: manfredl@princeton.edu.
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Abstract

In this paper we argue that an operational organism concept can help to overcome the structural deficiency of mathematical models in biology. In our opinion, the structural deficiency of mathematical models lies mainly in our inability to identify functionally relevant biological characters in biological systems, and not so much in a lack of adequate mathematical representations of biological processes. We argue that the problem of character identification in biological systems is linked to the question of a properly formulated organism concept. Lastly, we demonstrate how a decomposition of an organism into independent characters in the context of a specific biological process—such as adaptation by means of natural selection—depends on the dynamical properties and invariance conditions of the equations that describe this process.

Type
Philosophy of Biology, Psychology, and Neuroscience
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S289 - S300
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium “The Organism in Philosophical Focus” at the biannual meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Kansas City, October 1998. We would like to thank the participants in this symposium for their critical input. In addition we would like to thank Gerry Geison and Mike Mahoney for helpful discussions on the subject.

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