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Sequence Matters: Genomic Research and the Gene Concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Laura Perini
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Abstract

Analysis of two key ways of characterizing genes—as causes of phenotypic effects and as genomic DNA sequences—has yielded widespread pessimism that they can be united in a coherent gene concept. This raises important questions about the epistemology of genomic research: If analysis of a genome sequence cannot yield information about genes defined both in terms of their products and their DNA sequence, then what could we learn from it? I investigate basic tools of genomic analysis, argue that they do not reflect the application of either gene concept, and clarify how we learn from genomic research.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 752 - 762
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I wish to thank Cheryl Kerfeld, André Cavalcanti, and James Lennox for their help with this project.

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