Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology
Diagrams as locality aids for explanation and model construction in cell biology
复制标题
DOI：
10.1007/s10539-012-9311-9
复制
发表时间：
2012-02
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Nicholaos Jones;O. Wolkenhauer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nicholaos Jones;O. Wolkenhauer
使用两个代表细胞分裂周期机制的早期图表作为案例研究，我们的目标是扩展先前对图表在科学推理中的作用，特别是它们在生物推理中的作用的哲学分析。实际上，我们讨论的图表是从关于细胞分裂周期的实验数据到该周期分子机制的数学模型的完整和不可或缺的推理要素。根据先前的分析，这些图表提供了对细胞周期的功能解释，并有助于构建细胞周期的数学模型。但是，除了这些分析之外，我们还展示了图表如何促进数学模型的构建，我们认为图表允许从法理上解释细胞周期。我们进一步认为，使图表成为解释和模型构建不可或缺的整体的原因是它们作为局部性辅助工具的性质：它们将信息组合在一起，以一种句子表示不同的方式一起使用。
Using as case studies two early diagrams that represent mechanisms of the cell division cycle, we aim to extend prior philosophical analyses of the roles of diagrams in scientific reasoning, and specifically their role in biological reasoning. The diagrams we discuss are, in practice, integral and indispensible elements of reasoning from experimental data about the cell division cycle to mathematical models of the cycle’s molecular mechanisms. In accordance with prior analyses, the diagrams provide functional explanations of the cell cycle and facilitate the construction of mathematical models of the cell cycle. But, extending beyond those analyses, we show how diagrams facilitate the construction of mathematical models, and we argue that the diagrams permit nomological explanations of the cell cycle. We further argue that what makes diagrams integral and indispensible for explanation and model construction is their nature as locality aids: they group together information that is to be used together in a way that sentential representations do not.