7 - On Conceptual Change in Biology: The Case of the Gene

Summary

The current situation in philosophy of science generally – and in philosophy of biology in particular – is most unsatisfactory. There are at least three general problems that many philosophers thought themselves near to solving in the 1960s–70s, only to find that the anticipated solutions have come unglued: (1) the problem of characterizing and understanding the dynamics of conceptual change in science; (2) the problem of understanding the relationships among theories (including in particular the reduction of one theory to another); and (3) the problem of scientific realism (i.e., the problem of how seriously to take the claims of theoretical science or, at least, of some theoretical scientists, to be describing the world literally in terms of such theoretical entities as genes, protons, DNA molecules, and quarks). This general situation has significant effects on the philosophical study of particular sciences. In philosophy of biology, for example, although one finds several elegant studies of particular topics, the sad fact is that there is no generally satisfactory large-scale synthesis in sight. We have no agreed-on foundation, no generally acceptable starting point from which to delimit and resolve the full range of theoretical problems of interest to scientists and philosophers regarding biology.

This chapter provides a preliminary report on a new approach to conceptual change, together with a sketch of its application to important biological subject matter. The approach offers some promise of providing a satisfactory framework, compatible with scientific realism, for detailed studies of particular scientific developments.