Revisiting abstraction and idealization in molecular biology (British Society for Philosophy of Science Annual Conference (BSPS 2019))
Abstract
Abstraction has been understood as a process by which scientists omit certain features that are deemed irrelevant for the occurence of the studied phenomena. Idealization, on the other hand, is commonly construed as a way of distorting selected features.
According to one of the most popular accounts of scientific explanation, the mechanistic account of explanation, scientists attempt to build models that accurately represent all and only the difference-making factors that are responsible for the production of phenomena. However, the common practice in molecular biology modeling is to omit as well as distort various features, or so has been argued.
These apparent distortions include the practices of disregarding the role of concentration, treating molecular complexes as if they were single-operating units, and treating the fuzzy process of constant binding and detaching of molecules as if the process was linear. Thus, it seems that the difference-making factors are commonly being distorted.
I argue that this line of thinking is misguided as it rests on underdeveloped notions of abstraction and idealization. The analysis I present shows how the objection against the mechanistic account of explanation fails, despite the fact that the objection has gained in popularity.