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2 - How the Choice of Experimental Organism Matters: Epistemological Reflections on an Aspect of Biological Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Richard Burian
Richard Burian
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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Summary

Unless we recognize our innate biases in animal model choice, we limit our potential as experimenters. Two biases seem common from my observations. First is the anthropomorphism that we all seem to get from the monkeys in zoos and circuses, coming as it does long before we aspire to be scientists. Second is for the animal or animals with which we worked during our early days in our fields. Both of these are easy to understand and forgivable. What has neither of these saving attributes is our unwillingness to consider the entire biologic kingdom as a source of possible models of one or another human functions, normal or diseased.

The value of an organism as an experimental tool, or in field studies, depends not only on various features of the organism but also on the problems to be addressed and the available experimental and field techniques. Indeed, even when some organism is “the” right one for a theoretical job, its rightness is temporary and more or less local or regional. It depends not only on the job but also on the techniques employed and the social or institutional support system for doing that job.

Most biologists realize that the choice of organism can greatly affect the outcome of well-defined experiments and can thus have a major impact on the valuation of biological theories. Anyone who does not appreciate the point need only think of well-known cases in which the choice of organism led investigators down a garden path.

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The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics , pp. 11 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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