Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-956mj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-15T10:13:22.228Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reduction in Genetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There is a disagreement between Kenneth Schaffner and David Hull about the relationship between the biological theory of Mendelian genetics and the physico-chemical theory of molecular genetics. Schaffner believes that the logical-empiricist thesis about theory-reduction is, in important respects, applicable to this relationship and illuminating when so applied. Hull denies its applicability and its illumination – indeed, he has gone as far as to say that “I find the logical empiricist analysis of reduction inadequate at best, wrong-headed at worst.” (Hull, 1974a, 12) And he adds that “the conclusion seems inescapable that the logical empiricist analysis of reduction is not very instructive in the case of genetics. For my own part, I found that it hindered rather than facilitated understanding the relationship between Mendelian and molecular genetics.” (Hull, 1974a, 44)

Type
Symposium: History and Philosophy of Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1974 , 1974 , pp. 633 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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.)

References

Burns, G. W.: 1972, The Science of Genetics, 2nd ed., Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, Th.: 1951, Genetics and the Origin of Species, 3rd ed. 1951, Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, Th.: 1970, Genetics of the Evolutionary Process, Columbia, New York.Google Scholar
Hull, D. L.: 1972, ‘Reduction in Genetics - Biology or Philosophy?’, Phil. Sci. 39,491-99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L.: 1973, ‘Reduction in Genetics - Doing the Impossible’, in Suppes, P. et al. (eds.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science IV, 619-35.Google Scholar
Hull, D. L.: 1974a, Philosophy of Biological Science, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.Google Scholar
Hull, D. L.: 1974b, ‘Informal Aspects of Theory Reduction’. Read at P.S.A. conference 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, R. C: 1974, The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Locke, J.: 1959, Fraser, A. C. (ed.), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Dover, New York.Google Scholar
Luzzatto, L., Nwachuku-Jarrett, E. S., and Reddy, S.: 1970, ‘Increased Sickling of Parasitised Erythrocytes as Mechanism of Resistance Against Malaria in the Sickle-Cell Trait’, Lancet I, 319-22.Google Scholar
Nagel, E.: 1961, The Structure of Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruse, M.: 1971, ‘Reduction, Replacement, and Molecular Biology’, Dialectica 25, 39–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruse, M.: 1973, The Philosophy of Biology, Hutchinson University Library, London.Google Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1967, ‘Approaches to Reduction’, Phil. Sci. 34, 137-47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1969, ‘The Watson-Crick Model and Reductionism’, Brit. J. Phil. Sci. 20, 325-48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1974a, ‘The Peripherality of Reductionism in the Development of Molecular Biology’, . Hist. Biol. 7, 111-39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, K. F.: 1974b, ‘Reductionism in Biology: Prospects and Problems’, Read at P.S.A. conference 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strickberger, M. W.: 1968, Genetics, Macmillan, New York.Google Scholar