ABSTRACT

In this essay I develop a new, unified perspective on genetics, development, and reproduction. I suggest a heuristic use of theory reduction to address an issue of contemporary theoretical importance: the framing of a theory of developmental units. I claim that the gene concept, properly understood, is a concept of developmental unit and suggest that the historiography of genetics should reflect this fact. There is no denying that genetics has been a successful science. If its relation to development could be adequately expressed, genetic theory might also provide clues to a theory of development. Conventionally, the mechanisms of development are expected to be explained in terms of mechanisms of genetics. Development is treated as an epigenetic process and, if theory reduction is possible, a theory of development is expected to reduce to a general theory of genetics. This expected direction of reduction from development to genetics depends on the conventional understanding of genetics and its relations. I argue for a reversal of this expectation by reconceptualizing genetics and development as fields describing aspects of the process of reproduction. The relation of these aspects is not one of simple parts to a whole. They are deeply entwined, as my analysis of reproduction will show. Once certain features of scientific reduction are identified, the new perspective can be used to pursue reductionism heuristically, to use what we know about the theoretical units of genetics to speculate about units of a general theory of development. Thus, reductionism may be scientifically useful even though the conditions for formal reduction are not met.