This paper aims to clarify the consequences of new scientific and philosophical approaches for the practical-theoretical framework of modern developmental biology. I highlight normal development, and the instructive-permissive distinction, as key parts of this framework which shape how variation is conceptualised and managed. Furthermore, I establish the different dimensions of biological variation: the units, temporality and mode of variation. Using the analytical frame established by this, I interpret a selection of examples as challenges to the instructive-permissive distinction. These examples include (...) the phenomena of developmental plasticity and transdifferentiation, the role of the microbiome in development, and new methodological approaches to standardisation and the assessment of causes. Furthermore, I argue that investigations into organismal development should investigate the effects of a wider range of kinds of variation including variation in the units, modes and temporalities of development. I close by examining various possible opportunities for producing and using normal development free of the assumptions of the instructive-permissive distinction. These opportunities are afforded by recent developments, which include new ways of producing standards incorporating more natural variation and being based on function rather than structure, and the ability to produce, store, and process large quantities of data. (shrink)

To identify and conceptualize research problems in science, philosophers and often scientists rely on classical accounts of problems that focus on intellectual problems defined in relation to theories. Recently, philosophers have begun to study the structures and functions of research problems not defined in relation to theories. Furthermore, scientists have long pursued research problems often labeled as practical or applied. As yet, no account of problems specifies the description of both so-called intellectual problems and so-called applied problems. This article proposes (...) a new conceptual framework of problems that accounts both for intellectual aspects of problems and for their practical or applied aspects. I illustrate the account with an example of a recent research project from evolutionary biology, and I indicate further routes by that to develop the account, especially in connection to empirical studies of science. (shrink)

Explanation is a perennially hot topic in philosophy of science. Yet philosophers have exhibited a curious blind spot to the questions of how explanatory projects develop over time, as well as what processes are involved in generating their developmental trajectories. This paper examines these questions using research into the end-Permian mass extinction as a case study. It takes as its jumping-off point the observation that explanations of historical events tend to grow more complex over time, but it goes beyond this (...) observation by scrutinizing the processes responsible for generating this pattern. Surveying several decades of research into the end-Permian extinction, I suggest that the principal “driver” of explanation in geohistory is non-explanatory work: work that is undertaken to increase our descriptive understanding of a phenomenon, not to test a particular explanatory claim. Non-explanatory work drives explanation by imposing or eliminating demands on explanation, and by furnishing new resources for constructing explanatory models. Explanations grow more complex because the demands on explanation tend to increase with ongoing characterization of the target phenomenon, and characterization tends grows the roster of explanatory resources. However, the fact that non-explanatory work sometimes eliminates demands on explanation means that this trend is not irreversible. I suggest that to achieve a more rounded view of the dynamics of explanation, philosophers should ask how research into complex phenomena is organized, as well as how explanatory progress depends upon the coordination of different kinds of material and epistemic resources. (shrink)

Edited by Alessandro Minelli and Thomas Pradeu, Towards a Theory of Development gathers essays by biologists and philosophers, which display a diversity of theoretical perspectives. The discussions not only cover the state of art, but broaden our vision of what development includes and provide pointers for future research. Interestingly, all contributors agree that explanations should not just be gene-centered, and virtually none use design and other engineering metaphors to articulate principles of cellular and organismal organization. I comment in particular on (...) the issue of how to construe the notion of a ‘theory’ and whether developmental biology has or should aspire to have theories, which four of the contributions discuss in detail while taking opposing positions. Beyond construing a theory in terms of its empirical content, my aim is to shift the focus toward the role that theories have for guiding future scientific theorizing and practice. Such a conception of ‘theory’ is particularly important in the context of development, because arriving at a theoretical framework that provides guidance for the discipline of developmental biology as a whole is more plausible than a unified representation of development across all taxa. (shrink)