Transcript Reduction: For and Against Chapter 7

Reduction: For and Against
Chapter 7
Eric Oberheim
Sex & Death
Breakdown
The Antireductionist Consensus
 Reduction by degrees?
 Are genes DNA sequences plus
contexts?
 The Reductionist Anticonsensus

Theory of reduction
Translation of vocabulary of theory from
old to new; bridge principles
 Hence old and new theories made
commensurable; classic -> molecular
 Bridge laws always possible according
to logical empiricists due to relation
with observation and experiment

Objection to bridge laws
Kuhn & Feyerabend: no theory neutral
observation vocab
 Not applicable to genetics

The Antireductionist
consensus
One-to-many translation
e.g. dominant allele
 Therefore Mendelian kinds may have no
distinctive molecular property
 Thus two complementary and mutually
illuminating theories

Tree of explanatory
dependence
Theories don’t invent mechanisms
 Tree is rooted in fundamental physical
processes
 Discoveries in molecular biology shed
light on classic genetics

Reduction by degrees?
Multiple realisation
micro -> macro
 Wave / Particle duality?
 The law of independent assortment
reduced to molecular level

“Gory details”
Kitcher - Gory details not important to
the explanatory power of Mendelian
principles
 e.g. round peg square hole
 No need for molecular explanation - too
detailed
 Robust process explanation
 Actual sequence explanation often
necessary

Contd...
Antireductionist many-many claim
that...
 Old & new theories are integrated and
causally explained
 But methodologically and conceptually
independent

Are genes DNA sequences
plus context?
Hull: gene cannot be reduced just to
DNA
 Concrete structural object cannot be
found; “position effects”
 Broader molecular context necessary

Neumann-Held
Gene as a process including
developmental matrix
 Impossible gene to DNA correlation

The reductionist
Anticonsensus
Says this reduction is not successful
 Must be a relation
 This raises three important Qs
(i) more complex relationship?
(ii) ideological baggage
(iii) integrated Vs incorporated

Who knows?
Waters and Schaffner argue in favour of
theory reduction in response to multiple
realisation
 Genes -phenotypic code or difference
makers?
 Transcription factors as distant from
gene, “coding sequence”

What is a gene? Grrrrrr we
still don’t know!
Gene does not name a unit of molecular
bio. Shorthand for different units, a
shifting tag.
 Different biologists use different
meanings - exons Vs introns mRNA etc.

Morphogenetic fields ploughed
Unit of developing embryo
 mosaic of 3-D
 strong intra but weak inter field
relations
 combination of gene, chemical milieu
and environment
 develop mental output invariant

Flying in the face of science
Stable outcomes e.g. four-winged
mutant ninja flies become two-winged
again
 therefore developmental bio. Must be
able to be reduced to molecular niveau
 poss explain genes on Macro-scale
 thus actual seq explanations do not
undermine explanatory significance

And the winner is...
NOBODY
 progress under both headings
 wishy-washy
 not really independent theories

Now you do that thing where
you knock on the table
ACHTUNG!
Bitte beachten Sie, dass fuer naechste
Woche Kapitel 8 zu lesen ist
 Wer das nicht gelesen hat, darf nicht
hereinkommen
