Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T20:45:48.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Heroic Antireductionism and Genetics: A Tale of One Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Russell E. Vance
Russell E. Vance*
Affiliation:
University of California at Berkeley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I provide a novel argument against the claim that classical genetics is being reduced to molecular genetics. Specifically, I demonstrate that reductionists must subscribe to the unargued and problematic thesis that molecular genetics is ‘independent’ of classical genetics. I also argue that several standard antireductionist positions can be faulted for unnecessarily conceding the Independence Thesis to the reductionists. In place of a ‘tale of two sciences’, I offer a ‘heroic’ stance that denies classical genetics is being reduced, yet sees classical and molecular genetics as fundamentally unified.

Type
Philosophy of Biology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers Sep., 1996. , 1996 , pp. S36 - S45
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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

†

Financial support for this work was provided in part by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute, and the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. I would like to thank David Bakhurst, Lindley Darden, Peeter Piegaze, Rob Wilson, Katherine Wynne-Edwards, and especially Sergio Sismondo for their insightful comments on earlier drafts.

‡

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, 485 Life Science Addition, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720.

References

Cook-Deegan, R. (1994), The Gene Wars. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Darden, L. and Maull, N. (1977), “Interfield Theories”, Philosophy of Science 44, 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. (1974), Philosophy of Biological Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1984), “1953 and All That. A Tale of Two Sciences”, in E. Sober 1994, pp. 379–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mumford, S. (1994), “Dispositions, Supervenience, Reduction” Philosophical Quarterly 44, 419–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, E. (1961), “The Reduction of Theories”, in The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Ch.11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, A. (1985), The Structure of Biological Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. (1967), “Approaches to Reduction”, Philosophy of Science 34, 137–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, E. (1994), Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Waters, C.K. (1990), “Why the Antireductionist Consensus Won't Survive the Case of Classical Mendelian Genetics” in Sober, E. 1994, pp. 401–417.Google Scholar
Waters, C.K. (1994), “Genes Made Molecular” Philosophy of Science 61, 163–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, J. and Crick, F. (1953), “A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid”, Nature 171, 737–738.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zubay, G. (1993) Biochemistry. 3rd ed. Dubuque, IA: Wm C. Brown Publishers.Google Scholar