Big Data Biology: Between Eliminative Inferences and Exploratory Experiments

Philosophy of Science 82 (2):198-218 (2015)
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Abstract

Recently, biologists have argued that data - driven biology fosters a new scientific methodology; namely, one that is irreducible to traditional methodologies of molecular biology defined as the discovery strategies elucidated by mechanistic philosophy. Here I show how data - driven studies can be included into the traditional mechanistic approach in two respects. On the one hand, some studies provide eliminative inferential procedures to prioritize and develop mechanistic hypotheses. On the other, different studies play an exploratory role in providing useful generalizations to complement the procedure of prioritization. Overall this paper aims to shed light on the structure of contemporary research in molecular biology

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References found in this work

Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.
Pragmatic laws.Sandra D. Mitchell - 1997 - Philosophy of Science 64 (4):479.
The roles of integration in molecular systems biology.Maureen A. O’Malley & Orkun S. Soyer - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (1):58-68.
Classificatory Theory in Data-intensive Science: The Case of Open Biomedical Ontologies.Sabina Leonelli - 2012 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 26 (1):47 - 65.

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