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Strategies of Model Building in Population Genetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Anya Plutynski
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Abstract

In 1966, Richard Levins argued that there are different strategies in model building in population biology. In this paper, I reply to Orzack and Sober's (1993) critiques of Levins and argue that his views on modeling strategies apply also in the context of evolutionary genetics. In particular, I argue that there are different ways in which models are used to ask and answer questions about the dynamics of evolutionary change, prospectively and retrospectively, in classical versus molecular evolutionary genetics. Further, I argue that robustness analysis is a tool for, if not confirmation, then something near enough, in this discipline.

Type
Strategies of Modeling in Biology and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Miriam Solomon , December 2006 , pp. 755 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Michael Weisberg for organizing our symposium session, and thanks to my fellow symposiasts, Jay Odenbaugh, and Janet Stemwedel and Peter Godfrey Smith for chairing the session. Thanks also to Jim Lennox, Rob Skipper, and Elliott Sober and members of the audience at the meeting for their thoughtful comments.

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