Grupo ANFIBIO

Roffé, A. (2017). Genetic drift as a directional factor: Biasing effects and a priori predictions. Biology & Philosophy, 34:2, 535-558. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-017-9575-1 Abstract: The adequacy of Elliott Sober’s analogy between classical mechanics and evolutionary theory—according to which both theories explain via a zero-force law and a set of forces that alter the zero-force state—has been criticized from various points of view. I focus here on McShea and Brandon’s claim that drift shouldn’t be considered a force because it is not directional. I argue that there are a number of different theses that could be meant by this, and show that one of those theses—the idea that drift cannot bias populations to be taken somewhere in the evolutionary space from one generation to the next—is actually false. Not only has this thesis been implicitly assumed in the discussion of the force analogy thus far, but it is also commonly found in a wider range of philosophical and biological ...

Karina Alleva, José Díez, Lucia Federico, Models, theory structure and mechanisms in biochemistry: The case of allosterism, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Volume 63, 2017, Pages 1-14, ISSN 1369-8486, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2017.03.004 . (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848617300328) Abstract: From the perspective of the new mechanistic philosophy, it has been argued that explanatory causal mechanisms in some special sciences such as biochemistry and neurobiology cannot be captured by any useful notion of theory, or at least by any standard notion. The goal of this paper is to show that a model-theoretic notion of theory, and in particular the structuralist notion of a theory-net already applied to other unified explanatory theories, adequately suits the MWC allosteric mechanism explanatory set-up. We also argue, contra some mechanistic claims que...