Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-54txb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-08T05:19:58.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scale Dependency and Downward Causation in Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sara Green
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that scale dependence of physical and biological processes offers resistance to reductionism and has implications that support a specific kind of downward causation. I demonstrate how insights from multiscale modeling can provide a concrete mathematical interpretation of downward causation as boundary conditions for models used to represent processes at lower scales. The autonomy and role of macroscale parameters and higher-level constraints are illustrated through examples of multiscale modeling in physics, developmental biology, and systems biology. Drawing on these examples, I defend the explanatory importance of constraining relations for understanding the behavior of biological systems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 5 , December 2018 , pp. 998 - 1011
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Julia Bursten, Annamaria Carusi, and Robert Batterman for inspiring conversations on this topic, and Julia in particular for organizing the symposium Matters of Scale: Multiscale Modeling across the Sciences at PSA 2017 in Atlanta. William Bechtel provided insightful comments to an earlier version of this article.

References

Batterman, Robert W. 2012. “The Tyranny of Scales.” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics, ed. Batterman, Robert W., 225–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Batterman, Robert W. 2017. “Autonomy of Theories: An Explanatory Problem.” Noûs. doi:10.1111/nous.12191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bechtel, William. 2017. “Explicating Top-Down Causation Using Networks and Dynamics.” Philosophy of Science 84:253–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo, and Love, Alan. 2017. “Reductionism in Biology.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology/.Google Scholar
Bursten, Julia. 2015. “Surfaces, Scales and Synthesis: Reasoning at the Nanoscale.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald T. 1974. “Downward Causation in Hierarchically Organised Biological Systems.” In Studies in the Philosophy of Biology: Reduction and Related Problems, ed. Ayala, Francisco and Dobzhansky, Theodosius, 179–86. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Carusi, Annamaria, Burrage, Kevin, and Rodríguez, Blanca. 2012. “Bridging Experiments, Models and Simulations: An Integrative Approach to Validation in Computational Cardiac Electrophysiology.” American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physiology 303:H144–H155.Google ScholarPubMed
Christiansen, Peder V. 2000. “Macro and Micro-Levels in Physics.” In Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies and Matter, ed. Andersen, Peter B⊘gh, Emmeche, Claus, Finnemann, Niels Ole, and Christiansen, Peder Voetmann, 51–62. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Craver, Carl F., and Bechtel, William. 2007. “Top-Down Causation without Top-Down Causes.” Biology and Philosophy 22 (4): 547–63..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Lance A. 2012. “Epithelial Machines That Shape the Embryo.” Trends in Cell Biology 22:82–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davidson, Lance A., von Dassow, Michelangelo, and Zhou, Jian. 2009. “Multi-Scale Mechanics from Molecules to Morphogenesis.” International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology 41:2147–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Emmeche, Claus, K⊘ppe, Simo, and Stjernfelt, Frederik. 2000. “Levels, Emergence, and Three Versions of Downward Causation.” In Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies and Matter, ed. Andersen, Peter B⊘gh, Emmeche, Claus, Finnemann, Niels Ole, and Christiansen, Peder Voetmann, 13–34. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Sara, and Batterman, Robert. 2017. “Biology Meets Physics: Reductionism and Multi-Scale Modeling of Morphogenesis.” Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences 61:20–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hooker, Cliff. 2013. “On the Import of Constraints in Complex Dynamical Systems.” Foundations of Science 18:757–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, Marie I. 2015. Reductive Explanation in the Biological Sciences. Cham: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon. 1998. Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Jaegwon 2000. “Making Sense of Downward Causation.” In Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies and Matter, ed. Andersen, Peter B⊘gh, Emmeche, Claus, Finnemann, Niels Ole, and Christiansen, Peder Voetmann, 305–21. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Kohl, Peter, and Noble, Denis. 2009. “Systems Biology and the Virtual Physiological Human.” Molecular Systems Biology 5:292.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Laubichler, Manfred, and Wagner, Günter P.. 2001. “How Molecular Is Molecular Developmental Biology? A Reply to Alex Rosenberg’s Reductionism Redux: Computing the Embryo.” Biology and Philosophy 16:53–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Callie J., and Davidson, Lance A.. 2013. “The Interplay between Cell Signaling and Mechanics in Developmental Processes.” Nature Reviews Genetics 14:733–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moreno, Alvaro, and Umerez, Jon. 2000. “Downward Causation at the Core of Living Organization.” In Downward Causation: Minds, Bodies and Matter, ed. Andersen, Peter B⊘gh, Emmeche, Claus, Finnemann, Niels Ole, and Christiansen, Peder Voetmann, 99–117. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Newman, Stuart A., Christley, Scott, Glimm, Tilmann, Hentschel, H. G. E., Kazmierczak, Bogdan, Zhang, Yong-Tao, Zhu, Jianfeng, and Alber, Mark. 2011. “Multiscale Models for Vertebrate Limb Development.” In Multiscale Modeling of Developmental Systems, ed. Schatten, Gerald P., Schnell, Santiago, Maini, Philip, Newman, Stuart A., and Newman, Timothy, 311–40. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Noble, Denis. 2012. “A Theory of Biological Relativity: No Privileged Level of Causation.” Interface Focus 2:55–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oden, J. Tinsley. 2006. Finite Elements of Nonlinear Continua. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, Paul, and Putnam, Hilary. 1958. “Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis.” In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Feigl, Herbert, Maxwell, Grover, and Scriven, Michael, 3–36. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Pattee, Howard H. 1971. “Physical Theories of Biological Co-ordination.” Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 4:255–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Purcell, Edward M. 1977. “Life at Low Reynolds Number.” American Journal of Physics 45:3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qu, Zhilin, Garfinkel, Alan, Weiss, James N., and Nivala, Melissa. 2011. “Multi-Scale Modeling in Biology: How to Bridge the Gaps between Scales?” Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 107:21–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robert, Jason S. 2004. Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Alex. 1997. “Reductionism Redux: Computing the Embryo.” Biology and Philosophy 12:445–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Alex 2018. “Making Mechanism Interesting.” Synthese 195 (1): 11–33..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt-Nielsen, Knut. 1984. Scaling: Why Is Animal Size So Important? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skillings, Derek J. 2015. “Mechanistic Explanation of Biological Processes.” Philosophy of Science 82:1139–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, D’Arcy W. 1917/1917. On Growth and Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vogel, Steven. 2003. Comparative Biomechanics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Marcel. 2005. Philosophy of Experimental Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Mark. 2012. “What Is Classical Mechanics Anyway?” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics, ed. Batterman, Robert W., 43–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar