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On the Reduction of Genetics to Molecular Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Steven Orla Kimbrough
Steven Orla Kimbrough*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Abstract

The applicability of Nagel's concept of theory reduction, and related concepts of reduction, to the reduction of genetics to molecular biology is examined using the lactose operon in Escherichia coli as an example. Geneticists have produced the complete nucleotide sequence of two of the genes which compose this operon. If any example of reduction in genetics should fit Nagel's analysis, the lactose operon should. Nevertheless, Nagel's formal conditions of theory reduction are inapplicable in this case. Instead, it is argued that genetics has been partially reduced to molecular biology in the sense of token-token reduction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 389 - 406
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1979

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