Laws, Models, and Theories in Biology: A Unifying Interpretation

Abstract

Three metascientific concepts that have been the object of philosophical analysis are the concepts of law, model, and theory. The aim of this chapter is to present the explication of these concepts and of their relationships made within the framework of Sneedian or metatheoretical structuralism (Balzer et al., An architectonic for science. The structuralist program. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1987), and of their application to a case from the realm of biology: population dynamics. The analysis carried out will make it possible to support, contrary to what some philosophers of science in general and of biology in particular hold, the following claims: (a) there are “laws” in biological sciences, (b) many of the heterogeneous and different “models” of biology can be accommodated under some “theory,” and (c) this is exactly what confers great unifying power to biological theories.