Critical realism as a continuing resource for biological research: the illustrative case study of biting midges and their symbiotic bacteria

Abstract

This paper aims to illustrate the advantages of critical realism for biological scientists and to offer an example, for others in philosophy and the social sciences, of applied natural science in practice. A case study is offered using a first-person account of the latter. This relates to research on biting flying insects that are vectors of some infectious diseases in animals and humans. The account illuminates a range of matters that can be understood productively, using critical realism as a metatheoretical resource. These include the challenges for a neophyte researcher joining a pre-exiting ongoing line of scientific inquiry, dealing with existing fallible knowledge, working between open systems in the field and the closed system of the laboratory and the necessity of working in interdisciplinary networks. These are discussed in order to highlight the antecedent condition of possibility for the research reported and its implications for human and animal health.