Explicación estructural en Biología. Poniendo límites a la explicación mecanicista

Roger Deulofeu Batllori

doi:10.6018/daimon.565381

Autores/as

Roger Deulofeu Batllori Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4554-9756

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/daimon.565381

Palabras clave: explicación biológica, explicación estructural, explicación mecanicista, explicación causal, Huneman

Agencias de apoyo

Esta investigación está financiada por dos proyectos de generación del conocimiento del ministerio español de Ciencia, Innovación y Univeridades: “Reassessing scientific objectivity” PID2020-115114GB-I00 (Universidad de Barcelona); “A philosophical exploration of lineages” PID-2022-137993NA-I00 (Universidad de Oviedo).

Resumen

Resumen: Los análisis filosóficos sobre la explicación científica en biología han estado dominados en los últimos 20 años por el modelo de la explicación mecanicista. El nuevo mecanicismo ha generado un nuevo marco conceptual para repensar importantes nociones tradicionales de la filosofía de la ciencia, y en particular, su propuesta de explicación como descripción de un mecanismo con sus componentes, actividades y sus conexiones causales ha tenido mucho éxito capturando cómo funciona la explicación en ramas experimentales de la biología. Sin embargo, la aparición de lo que podemos llamar biología de sistema, y un desarrollo importante de los modelos matemáticos dinámicos complejos que se usan en ramas más teóricas de la biología, como la ecología, suponen un reto para este tipo de modelo explicativo. Ante la dificultad de capturar con el modelo mecanicista cómo funcionan ciertas explicaciones donde la modelización matemática es dominante Philippe Huneman propone llamar explicaciones estructurales aquellas donde la modelización matemática no juega un papel meramente representacional, sino también explicativo. En este artículo analizo distintos tipos de explicaciones matemáticas en biología, como las explicaciones topológicas y las explicaciones de equilibrio y muestro como se alejan de la propuesta mecanicista, abstrayendo de detalles microscópicos y causales y capturando patrones que permiten explicar fenómenos de forma no causal-mecanicista.

Abstract: Philosophical analysis of scientific explanation in biology for the past 20 years has been dominated by the new mechanism account. The new mechanism provides a new framework to think about traditional concepts in the philosophy of science, and in particular, his model of scientific explanation as the description of a mechanism with its parts, activities and their causal connection has been very successful in capturing how explanation works mainly in experimental biology. However, the rise of systems biology and the development of complex mathematical dynamic models used in other theoretical branches challenges the new mechanisms and their explanatory model. Philippe Huneman claims that there are several explanations in biology that are mathematical, in which formal models do not play only a representational role but rather an explanatory role. In this paper I analyze different types of mathematical explanations in biology such as topological and equilibrium explanations and I show how they explain in a way which is very different from the new mechanism proposal. These explanations abstract away on many occasions from the microscopic details and explain in a non-causal mechanistic way.

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