Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-g4j75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T22:34:09.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex Systems, Trade-Offs, and Theoretical Population Biology: Richard Levin's “Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology” Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jay Odenbaugh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ecologist Richard Levins argues population biologists must trade-off the generality, realism, and precision of their models since biological systems are complex and our limitations are severe. Steven Orzack and Elliott Sober argue that there are cases where these model properties cannot be varied independently of one another. If this is correct, then Levins's thesis that there is a necessary trade-off between generality, precision, and realism in mathematical models in biology is false. I argue that Orzack and Sober's arguments fail since Levins's thesis concerns the pragmatic features of model building not just the formal properties of models.

Type
Models and Modeling
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1496 - 1507
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 thank Marc Ereshefsky, Elaine Landry, Ed McCauley, Bill Nelson, Steven Orzack, Alex Rueger, and Bill Wimsatt for useful discussion and/or comments on earlier versions of this paper. Likewise, I thank the History and Philosophy of Science Department at Indiana University and the Philosophy Departments at the University of Western Ontario and UCSD for useful discussions.

References

Holt, R. (1977), “Predation, Apparent Competition, and the Structure of Predator-Prey Communities”, Predation, Apparent Competition, and the Structure of Predator-Prey Communities 12:197–229.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, G. Evelyn (1978), An Introduction to Population Ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Levins, Richard (1966), “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology”, The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology 54:421–431.Google Scholar
Levins, Richard (1968), Evolution in Changing Environments. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levins, Richard (1969), “Ecological Engineering: Theory and Technology”, Ecological Engineering: Theory and Technology 43:301–305.Google Scholar
Levins, Richard (1993), “A Response to Sober and Orzack: Formal Analysis and the Fluidity of Science”, A Response to Sober and Orzack: Formal Analysis and the Fluidity of Science 68:547–555.Google Scholar
Levins, Richard, and Lewontin, Richard (1985), The Dialectical Biologist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacArthur, Robert H. (1972), Geographical Ecology. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Orzack, Steven, and Sober, Elliott (1993), “A Critical Assessment of Levins's ‘The Strategy of Model Building (1966)’”, A Critical Assessment of Levins's ‘The Strategy of Model Building (1966)’ 68:534–546.Google Scholar
Palladino, Paolo (1990), “Defining Ecology: Ecological Theories, Mathematical Models, and Applied Biology in the 1950s and 1960s”, Defining Ecology: Ecological Theories, Mathematical Models, and Applied Biology in the 1950s and 1960s 24:223–243.Google Scholar
Pimm, Stuart (1991), The Balance of Nature? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schoener, Thomas W. (1983), “Field Experiments of Interspecific Competition”, Field Experiments of Interspecific Competition 122:240–285.Google Scholar
Watt, Kenneth E. (1968), Ecology and Resource Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar