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Why Do Biologists Use So Many Diagrams?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Benjamin Sheredos ,
Daniel Burnston ,
Adele Abrahamsen  and
William Bechtel
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Abstract

Diagrams have distinctive characteristics that make them an effective medium for communicating research findings, but they are even more impressive as tools for scientific reasoning. To explore this role, we examine diagrammatic formats that have been devised by biologists to (a) identify and illuminate phenomena involving circadian rhythms and (b) develop and modify mechanistic explanations of these phenomena.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 931 - 944
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We gratefully acknowledge the support of National Science Foundation grant 1127640.

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