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Theories, Models, and Equations in Biology: The Heuristic Search for Emergent Simplifications in Neurobiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Kenneth F. Schaffner
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Abstract

This article considers claims that biology should seek general theories similar to those found in physics but argues for an alternative framework for biological theories as collections of prototypical interlevel models that can be extrapolated by analogy to different organisms. This position is exemplified in the development of the Hodgkin-Huxley giant squid model for action potentials, which uses equations in specialized ways. This model is viewed as an “emergent unifier.” Such unifiers, which require various simplifications, involve the types of heuristics discussed in Wimsatt's writings on reduction, but with a twist. Here, the heuristics are used to generate emergent rather than reductive explanations.

Type
Where Neuroscience Meets Physics: Laws, Explanation, and the Hodgkin-Huxley Model of the Action Potential
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 1008 - 1021
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Jim Bogen, Carl Craver, Marcel Weber, and Bill Wimsatt for comments and to the National Science Foundation for grants 0324367 and 0628825. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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