Allometries and scaling laws interpreted as laws: a reply to Elgin

I analyze here biological regression equations known in the literature as allometries and scaling laws. My focus is on the alleged lawlike status of these equations. In particular I argue against recent views that regard allometries and scaling laws as representing universal, non-continent, and/or strict biological laws. Although allometries and scaling laws appear to be generalizations applying to many taxa, they are neither universal nor exceptionless. In fact there appear to be exceptions to all of them. Nor are the constants in allometries and scaling laws truly constant, stable, or universal in character, but vary in value across different taxa and background conditions. Moreover, these equations represent evolutionary, strongly contingent generalizations, which threatens their lawlike status. Lastly, allometries and scaling laws do not offer stable probabilities to which they hold in different backgrounds. I further suggest that many allometries and scaling laws function to elucidate explananda rather than explanantia or covering laws.     

When logic fails ecology

Ecology plays an important role in society, informing policy and management decisions across a variety of issues. As such, regularities in processes would indicate higher levels of predictive outcomes and would reduce the amount of research required for specific issues that policy makers need addressed. Scientific laws are considered the pinnacle of success and usefulness in addressing regularities or universal truths. Ecology studies complex interactions of individuals with unique behaviors, making the identification of laws problematic. Two equations, Malthusian growth and the logistic equation, continue to receive attention and are frequently cited as exemplar laws in ecology. However, an understanding of scientific laws shows that neither are good candidates for law status. In this paper, I will discuss why ecology is not well structured for scientific laws, as they are currently understood. Finally, I will consider alternative proposals for the role of laws in ecology and alternate forms of laws that may be applicable.     

Causal and Mechanistic Explanations in Ecology

How are scientific explanations possible in ecology, given that there do not appear to be many-if any-ecological laws? To answer this question, I present and defend an account of scientific causal explanation in which ecological generalizations are explanatory if they are invariant rather than lawlike. An invariant generalization continues to hold or be valid under a special change-called an intervention-that changes the value of its variables. According to this account, causes are difference-makers that can be intervened upon to manipulate or control their effects. I apply the account to ecological generalizations to show that invariance under interventions as a criterion of explanatory relevance provides interesting interpretations for the explanatory status of many ecological generalizations. Thus, I argue that there could be causal explanations in ecology by generalizations that are not, in a strict sense, laws. I also address the issue of mechanistic explanations in ecology by arguing that invariance and modularity constitute such explanations.     

Darwin's laws

There is widespread agreement among contemporary philosophers of biology and philosophically-minded biologists that Darwin's insights about the intrusion of chance processes into biological regularities undermines the possibility of there being biological laws. Darwin made references to "designed laws." He also freely described some laws as having exceptions. This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the notion of scientific laws that was dominant in Darwin's time, and in all probability the one which he inherited. The analysis of laws is then used to show how it could have been natural for Darwin to believe in designed laws that had exceptions, and to highlight the continuity between the metaphysics of pre-Darwinian, Darwinian, and contemporary biological science. One important result is the removal of one motivation for the anti-laws sentiment in philosophy and biology.     

Evolution and belief: the missing question

In this paper, I address the question of what an evolutionary account of intentional states should look like. I suggest that many accounts rest on the (usually implicit) assumption that, so far as intentionality is concerned, differences between animal species should be understood solely in terms of comparative sophistication. I argue that this assumption is misguided. Such accounts ignore an important biological distinction between functional and anatomical characterisations and seek to explain comparative differences that are symptomatic of functional divergence by appealing solely to a cognitive analogue of anatomical complexity. This results in accounts that are fundamentally incomplete or beside the point.     

The function of function

Contemporary analyses of biological function almost invariably advocate a naturalistic analysis, grounding biological functions in some feature of the mind-independent world. Many recent accounts suggest that no single analysis will be appropriate for all cases of use and that biological teleology should be split into several distinct categories. This paper argues that such accounts have paid too little attention to the way in which functional language is used, concentrating instead on the types of situation in which it is used. An example of the role of teleology in science is examined and, on the basis of conclusions drawn from this, an alternative unifying analysis is proposed. It is suggested that, contrary to naturalistic accounts, teleology in biology carries no ontological commitment whatsoever to any class of mind-independent entities or properties. Instead, it is best regarded as a methodological device which is used to focus interest, formulate research perspectives and facilitate the structuring of certain questions or types of question that are pertinent in a given context of interest.     

Biomedical research practice and therapeutic practice: to whom does the human body belong?

Who owns the human body? This issue has been formerly raised about the status of the slave. Today, it has become a prominent stake for when reflecting on biomedical research and healthcare practices. In our cultures, many answers may be given to this question : they are derived from philosophical or theological traditions ; they are borrowed from anthropological, sociological or psychological knowledge ; they may be formulated in a moral or political perspective. All of them give different insights and reveal one of the various dimensions of the question. When examining the status of the body and its relation to the human subject in the various stages of his/her life (including his/her death), one of the main difficulties is to deal with each of these answers and to understand how they meet and interact in the public debate. Another matter is related to the fact that law also plays a crucial role in the process of giving an answer to this question. In our book, A qui appartient le corps humain ? Médecine, politique et droit (Paris, Belles Lettres, 2004), Claire Crignon-De Oliveira and I have tried to deal with both difficulties. In this article, I focus on the meaning of the various law traditions. In western world, the laws are all derived, up to a certain extent, from the Roman tradition. Whether they have chosen to consider the human body as a property or to associate the body to the person, they have taken very different options. However, an examination of the ways laws are elaborated on this topic shows that these two conceptions can meet in unexpected manners and that lawmaking can give creative answers to both the problem of protecting the person and to the requirements of biomedical research and healthcare practices.     

Hierarchies and causal relationships in interpretative models of the neoplastic process

The aim of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the kind of biological systems identified in the main explanatory theories of cancer (i.e. Somatic Mutation Theory and Tissue Organization Field Theory) and how references to the hierarchical organization of these biological systems are used in their explanatory arguments. I will discuss these aspects in terms of the isolation of the "locus of control" (Bechtel and Richardson 2010); that is, the point at which decisions are made shaping the explanatory endeavour. In fact, the current view of the neoplastic process, not as a static circumstance but as an evolving molecular and cellular process, makes it evident that the choice of the right level of analysis is not self-evident. This focus clarifies some epistemological reasons for the divergence between reductionist and organicist accounts and seems to suggest that the basis for distinctions among causal relationships that scientists sometimes make can be found in the hierarchical character of complex biological systems. I will argue that these different causal relationships reflect different levels of epistemic concern.     

A scaling law for the effects of architecture and allometry on tree vibration modes suggests a biological tuning to modal compartmentalization

Wind is a major ecological factor for plants and a major economical factor for forestry. Mechanical analyses have revealed that the multimodal dynamic behavior of trees is central to wind-tree interactions. Moreover, the trunk and branches influence dynamic modes, both in frequency and location. Because of the complexity of tree architecture, finite element models (FEMs) have been used to analyze such dynamics. However, these models require detailed geometric and architectural data and are tree-specific-two major restraints for their use in most ecological or biological studies. In this work, closed-form scaling laws for modal characteristics were derived from the dimensional analysis of idealized fractal trees that sketched the major architectural and allometrical regularities of real trees. These scaling laws were compared to three-dimensional FEM modal analyses of two completely digitized trees with maximal architectural contrast. Despite their simplifying hypotheses, the models explained most of the spatiotemporal characteristics of modes that involved the trunk and branches, especially for sympodial trees. These scaling laws reduce the tree to (1) a fundamental frequency and (2) one architectural and three biometrical parameters. They also give quantitative insights into the possible biological control of wind excitability of trees through architecture and allometries.     

There May be Strict Empirical Laws in Biology, after All

This paper consists of four parts. Part 1 is an introduction. Part 2 evaluates arguments for the claim that there are no strict empirical laws in biology. I argue that there are two types of arguments for this claim and they are as follows: (1) Biological properties are multiply realized and they require complex processes. For this reason, it is almost impossible to formulate strict empirical laws in biology. (2) Generalizations in biology hold contingently but laws go beyond describing contingencies, so there cannot be strict laws in biology. I argue that both types of arguments fail. Part 3 considers some examples of biological laws in recent biological research and argues that they exemplify strict laws in biology. Part 4 considers the objection that the examples in part 3 may be strict laws but they are not distinctively biological laws. I argue that given a plausible account of what distinctively biological means, such laws are distinctively biological.     

Living Precisely in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Vienna’s Institute of Experimental Biology, better known as the Vivarium, helped pioneer the quantification of experimental biology from 1903 to 1938. Among its noteable scientists were the director Hans Przibram and his brother Karl (a physicist), Paul Kammerer, Eugen Steinach, Paul Weiss, and Karl Frisch. The Vivarium’s scientists sought to derive laws describing the development of the individual organism and its relationship to the environment. Unlike other contemporary proponents of biological laws, however, these researchers created an explicitly anti-deterministic science. By “laws” they meant statistical regularities or “patterns.” They interpreted their experimental results in ways that forged a “third way” between determinism and pure spontaneity, aiming to capture the complexity of the interaction between the organism and its environment. This common feature of their research was made possible by the availability at the Vivarium of the latest in climate-control technology and of methods borrowed from statistical physics. The deeper roots of this search for a “third way” lay, I suggest, in the shared educational, social, and aesthetic experiences of the laboratory’s workers.     

疟疾疫苗研究进展及前景

疟疾肆虐,对全球公共卫生健康提出了严峻的挑战,疫苗作为一个关键性的预防策略,为消除疟疾提供了新的机遇。随着现代科技的高速发展,科学家们针对疟疾疫苗的研究正如火如荼进行着,其中红细胞前期疟疾疫苗、红细胞内期疟疾疫苗、传播阻断疫苗以及多抗原、多表位重组疟疾疫苗和多阶段融合蛋白疟疾疫苗等的相关研究已取得了重大进展。虽目前尚未有任何一种疟疾疫苗获得上市许可,未来作为可以拯救生命的优质、高效的抗疟疫苗或将成为根除疟疾不可替代的工具。     

Nuclear DNA, chloroplast DNA, and ploidy analysis clarified biological complexity of the Vandenboschia radicans complex (Hymenophyllaceae) in Japan and adjacent areas

Species complexes consisting of ill-defined "species" are widely known among ferns, and their involvement with reticulate evolution is expected. Nevertheless approaches to reticulation history with DNA markers are not yet commonly adopted. We have successfully elucidated the biological status of the Vandenboschia radicans complex in East Asian islands by combining analyses of ploidy level, a cpDNA marker (rbcL), and a nuclear DNA marker (GapCp). The results based on 266 individuals collected from 174 localities throughout Japan and Taiwan suggest that complicated hybridizations have occurred involving at least three parental diploid species from within the V. radicans complex and Vandenboschia liukiuensis, which was formerly considered to be distinct from this complex. Triploids are the most common cytotype, but they show no evidence of apogamous reproduction, while all nonhybrid diploids are rare and have very limited distribution. Possible accounts of this phenomenon will be briefly discussed including the possibility of relict distribution and occasional apogamous reproduction.     

The challenges and scope of theoretical biology

Scientific theories seek to provide simple explanations for significant empirical regularities based on fundamental physical and mechanistic constraints. Biological theories have rarely reached a level of generality and predictive power comparable to physical theories. This discrepancy is explained through a combination of frozen accidents, environmental heterogeneity, and widespread non-linearities observed in adaptive processes. At the same time, model building has proven to be very successful when it comes to explaining and predicting the behavior of particular biological systems. In this respect biology resembles alternative model-rich frameworks, such as economics and engineering. In this paper we explore the prospects for general theories in biology, and suggest that these take inspiration not only from physics, but also from the information sciences. Future theoretical biology is likely to represent a hybrid of parsimonious reasoning and algorithmic or rule-based explanation. An open question is whether these new frameworks will remain transparent to human reason. In this context, we discuss the role of machine learning in the early stages of scientific discovery. We argue that evolutionary history is not only a source of uncertainty, but also provides the basis, through conserved traits, for very general explanations for biological regularities, and the prospect of unified theories of life.     

Tools for the discovery of biopolymer producing cysteine relays

Cysteine relays, where a protein or small molecule is transferred multiple times via transthiolation, are central to the production of biological polymers. Enzymes that utilise relay mechanisms display broad substrate specificity and are readily engineered to produce new polymers. In this review, I discuss recent advances in the discovery, engineering and biophysical characterisation of cysteine relays. I will focus on eukaryotic ubiquitin (Ub) cascades and prokaryotic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthesis. These evolutionarily distinct processes employ similar chemistry and are readily modified for biotechnological applications. Both processes have been studied intensively for decades, yet recent studies suggest we do not fully understand their mechanistic diversity or plasticity. I will discuss the important role that activity-based probes (ABPs) and other chemical tools have had in identifying and delineating Ub cysteine-relays and the potential for ABPs to be applied to PHA synthases. Finally, I will offer a personal perspective on the potential of engineering cysteine-relays for non-native polymer production.     

Organisms or biological individuals? Combining physiological and evolutionary individuality

The definition of biological individuality is one of the most discussed topics in philosophy of biology, but current debate has focused almost exclusively on evolution-based accounts. Moreover, several participants in this debate consider the notions of a biological individual and an organism as equivalent. In this paper, I show that the debates would be considerably enriched and clarified if philosophers took into account two elements. First, physiological fields are crucial for the understanding of biological individuality. Second, the category of biological individuals should be divided into two subcategories: physiological individuals and evolutionary individuals, which suggests that the notions of organism and biological individual should not be used interchangeably. I suggest that the combination of an evolutionary and a physiological perspective will enable biologists and philosophers to supply an account of biological individuality that will be both more comprehensive and more in accordance with scientific practices.     

The problem of abortion: essentially contested concepts and moral autonomy

When one thinks about the ethics of abortion, one inevitably thinks about rights, since it is in terms of the concept of rights that much of the debate has been conducted. This is true of overtly feminist as well as non-feminist accounts. Indeed, some early feminist writers--Judith Jarvis Thomson and Mary Ann Warren, for example--employ a model of rights that is indistinguishable, or virtually indistinguishable, from that of their non-feminist counterparts. However, more recent feminist writers have developed a different understanding of 'a woman's right to choose.' In this paper, I will begin by outlining the non-feminist debate over the moral permissibility of abortion. I will suggest that this debate is irresolvable, since at its heart is an 'essentially contested concept', that of personhood. I will then consider the way in which some feminist writers have attempted to reconceive the terms of the abortion debate and suggest an expanded account of women's right to abortion, drawing on the work of Susan Sherwin. Finally, I will argue that there is a further element to a 'woman's right to choose' that expands on and provides a conceptual link between feminist and non-feminist understanding of abortion.     

The anarchist's guide to ecological theory. Or, we don't need no stinkin' laws

Several ecologists have recently suggested that ecology has several laws. This conclusion contrasts with the views of some philosophers of science, who have suggested that biology cannot have laws. I argue that the debate has been confused because two very different types of law can be recognised: correlative and causal laws. Once we recognise that there is a difference, the argument against causal laws becomes stronger, and instead I suggest that ecologists should recognise that they can and do produce generalisations that are used to build models – nomological machines – that describe the ecological systems they are studying.     

General Introduction to the Symposium on Evolutionary Developmental Biology: Paradigms, Problems, and Prospects

This symposium undertakes to examine some historical backgroundrelevant to the renaissance in biological studies linking evolutionand development, to review the current status of research inthis rapidly changing area (especially the problem of forginglinks between disciplines that have gone in divergent directions),to address the benefits and difficulties that arise from molecularstudies of the relationship between evolution and development,and to help set the research agenda in evolutionary developmentalbiology in the next few years. Rather than introducing the individualcontributions that follow, this paper aims to set some historicalbackground for the topics they cover. I argue that old questionsabout the relationship of development to evolution, raised bysuch figures as William Bateson and Richard Goldschmidt, remainrelevant to contemporary work, though they require major reformulationin light of subsequent developments. Many older questions, longset aside as intractable, remain open. Recently developed techniquesmay enable us to answer some of them. Accordingly, I suggest,it is worth reviewing the work of several historical figuresin setting current research agendas.     

<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">A</Emphasis> contextualist approach to functional localization in the brain

Functional localization has historically been one of the primary goals of neuroscience. There is still debate, however, about whether it is possible, and if so what kind of theories succeed at localization. I argue for a contextualist approach to localization. Most theorists assume that widespread contextual variability in function is fundamentally incompatible with functional decomposition in the brain, because contextualist accounts will fail to be generalizable and projectable. I argue that this assumption is misplaced. A properly articulated contextualism can ground successful theories of localization even without positing completely generalizable accounts. Via a case study from perceptual neuroscience, I suggest that there is strong evidence for contextual variation in the function of perceptual brain areas. I then outline a version of contextualism that is empirically adequate with respect to this data, and claim that it can still distinguish brain areas from each other according to their functional properties. Finally, I claim that the view does not fail the norms for good theory in the way that anticontextualists suppose. It is true that, on a contextualist view, we will not have theories that are completely generalizable and predictive. We can, however, have successful partial generalizations that structure ongoing investigation and lead to novel functional insight, and this success is sufficient to ground the project of functional localization.