When imprecision is a good thing, or how imprecise concepts facilitate integration in biology
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When imprecision is a good thing, or how imprecise concepts facilitate integration in biology Celso Neto1 Received: 2 May 2020 / Accepted: 18 November 2020 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Contrary to the common-sense view and positivist aspirations, scientific concepts are often imprecise. Many of these concepts are ambiguous, vague, or have an underspecified meaning (Gillon 1990). In this paper, I discuss how imprecise concepts promote integration in biology and thus benefit science. Previous discussions of this issue focus on the concepts of molecular gene and evolutionary novelty (Brigandt in Synthese 177:19–40, 2010; Fox Keller in The century of the gene, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2000; Love in Philos Sci 75:874–886, 2008; Waters in Philos Sci 61:163–185, 1994). The concept of molecular gene helps biologists integrate explanatory practices, while the notion of evolutionary novelty helps them integrate research questions into an interdisciplinary problem (Brigandt and Love in J Exp Zool Part B Mol Dev Evol 318:417–427, 2012; Waters, in: Galavotti, Dieks, Gonzalez, Hartmann, Uebel, Weber (eds) New directions in the philosophy of science, Springer, Dordrecht, 2014). In what follows, I compare molecular gene and evolutionary novelty to another imprecise concept, namely biological lineage. This concept promotes two other types of scientific integration: it helps biologists integrate theoretical principles and methodologies into different areas of biology. The concept of biological lineage facilitates these types of integration because it is broad and under-specified in ways that the concepts of molecular gene and evolutionary novelty are not. Hence, I use the concept of biological lineage as a case study to reveal types of integration that have been overlooked by philosophers. This case study also shows that even very imprecise concepts can be beneficial to scientific practice. Keywords Biological lineage · Molecular gene · Evolutionary novelty · Scientific integration · Collaboration
* Celso Neto [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dalhousie University, 6299 South St, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada
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Introduction For decades, philosophers have investigated the meaning and refere1950nce of scientific concepts. This inquiry often focused on how concepts relate to theories and “unobservable” entities (Carnap 1950; Hacking 1983; Kuhn 1962; Quine 1951; Van Fraassen 1980). More recently, philosophers of science have broadened this investigation by examining how scientists use concepts in various activities. For instance, concepts help scientists to distinguish types of experiments, patterns of scientific reasoning, and to identify and organize interdisciplinary research (Feest and Steinle 2012; Nersessian 2010). Philosophers examine these, and other uses of scientific concepts, with the aim of better understanding how science
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