Abstract
The last few decades have seen molecular genetics occupy an expanding role in developmental biology. Alexander Rosenberg has argued that developmental biology’s shift to articulating the molecular basis for organismic development represents the point at which developmental biology becomes an explanatory discipline. This essay is a critical response to Rosenberg’s view, one that works to show that developmental biology is rich with explanatory resources in the absence of molecular genetics. At the same time, the essay seeks to articulate, by way of an appeal to explanatory depth, the explanatory value molecular genetics often provides to developmental biology.
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The strong interpretation of Rosenberg’s view is supported by selections like the following in his 1997 piece: “At most the non-molecular generalizations set out tasks for developmental explanation, and never provide explanations.” (p. 448) To be fair, however, there are occasions where Rosenberg hedges his view, claiming that the embryological level explanations are simply not complete. One might contend that an incomplete explanation is still minimally explanatory, which would run counter to the view that embryological level developmental biology is a wholly descriptive enterprise. The “minimally explanatory” view of developmental biology is much closer to the position I will articulate in this piece, and so for purposes of contrast I’ll target the strong interpretation of Rosenberg revealed in the quote above.
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Rosenberg deals with a number of traditional concerns surrounding reductionism, including how to understand theoretical terms like “gene” across classical and molecular paradigms. He also makes a point of focus to engage questions of functional terms. I aim to bracket as many of these broad reductionism questions as possible without jeopardizing the issues related narrowly to explanation. For a more direct anti-reductionist critique, though, see Laubichler and Gunter 2001.
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It may be worth mentioning at this point that in Woodward’s manipulationist framework the idea of a model can come in the form of a “directed graph”, which serves as a pictorial representation of proposed causal factors and how the manipulation of those factors affect outcomes. I think explanations in developmental biology could fruitfully be modeled according to a directed graph, but, regrettably, considerations of space make it impossible to produce such models.
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Woodward outlines the failure in explaining factors related to the temperature and pressure of a gas by appeal to the trajectories of the individual gas molecules.
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Strevens states, however, that this requirement does not entail explanation is forced down to the level of elementary particles. Like Woodward, he cites the example of the conditions of a gas as illustration of stopping at a higher level of organization.
References
Laubichler, M., & Gunter, W. (2001). How molecular is molecular developmental biology? A reply to Alex Rosenberg’s reductionism redux: Computing the embryo. Biology and Philosophy, 16, 53–68.
Rosenberg, A. (1997). Reductionism redux: Computing the embryo. Biology and Philosophy, 12, 445–470.
Rosenberg, A. (2006). Darwinian reductionism: Or, how to stop worrying and love molecular biology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Saunders, J. W. (1982). Developmental biology: Patterns problems principles. New York: Macmillan.
Strevens, M. (2009). Depth: An account of scientific explanation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Vogel, A., & Cheryl, T. (1993). FGF-4 maintains polarizing activity of posterior limb bud cells in vivo and in vitro. Development, 119(1), 199–206.
Woodward, J. (2005). Making things happen: A causal theory of explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woodward, J. (2008). Response to Strevens. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 77(1), 193–212.
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Pearson, C.H. (2013). Description, Explanation, and Explanatory Depth in Developmental Biology. In: Karakostas, V., Dieks, D. (eds) EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. The European Philosophy of Science Association Proceedings, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01306-0_28
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