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Theoretical Modeling and Biological Laws

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Gregory Cooper
Gregory Cooper*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Abstract

Recent controversy over the existence of biological laws raises questions about the cognitive aims of theoretical modeling in that science. If there are no laws for successful theoretical models to approximate, then what is it that successful theories do? One response is to regard theoretical models as tools. But this instrumental reading cannot accommodate the explanatory role that theories are supposed to play. Yet accommodating the explanatory function, as articulated by Brandon and Sober for example, seems to involve us once again in a reliance on laws. The paper concludes that we must rethink both the nature of laws and theoretical explanation in biology.

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. S28 - S35
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Robert Brandon for helpful discussion on these issues.

‡

Department of Philosophy, Duke University, 201 West Duke Building, Durham, NC 27708.

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