Abstract

The discussion of theory reduction in genetics threatens to become more and more confused. The position taken is that before one tries to work out complicated reduction principles which might be applicable to broad areas of biology in their relationships to chemistry and physics, it would be better to attempt first to elucidate the internal structure of some limited biological theories in a formal way and to consider simple constructs for reduction between them. This proposal is elaborated with respect to the original Mendelian genetics, linkage genetics and fine-structure genetics, and their relationship to non-formalized molecular genetics.