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A View from Biological Morphology Bradley Morgan Wood Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Bwood6@Tigers.Lsu.Edu Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2013 Scientific modeling & scientific er alism : a view from biological morphology Bradley Morgan Wood Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Wood, Bradley Morgan, "Scientific modeling & scientific er alism : a view from biological morphology" (2013). LSU Master's Theses. 2860. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2860 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SCIENTIFIC MODELING & SCIENTIFIC REALISM: A VIEW FROM BIOLOGICAL MORPHOLOGY A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies by Bradley M. Wood B.A., B.S., Louisiana State University, 2011 May 2013 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The development and production of my thesis has been made possible by the thoughtful contri- butions of friends, family, and advisors. I owe the privilege to pursue my academic interests and the freedom to dedicate the time necessary for the production of the current work to the unwaver- ing financial, emotional, and intellectual support of my parents, Charlie and Tammy Wood. Their encouragement and understanding has served as a dependable source of inspiration and motivation, and I hope that I have made the most of the opportunities they have afforded me. I am also grateful for the intellectual freedom and philosophical guidance provided by my thesis advisor, Prof. Jeffrey Roland. He has rescued me from countless philosophical confusions, and he has been an invaluable source of clarification (and occasional foil) for the complex views of Richard Boyd and issues in the philosophy of science. I appreciate the time and input of my committee members, Profs. Jon Cogburn, Dominique Homberger, and Husain Sarkar. I would like to thank Prof. Dominique Homberger, Brooke Dubansky, and Michelle Osborn for their help in clarifying the intricate processes of morphological modeling as performed by practicing mor- phologists. Lastly, I would like to thank Claiborne Macknight for her willingness to act as a sounding board for my ideas and for her dedicated intellectual and emotional support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 1. MORPHOLOGICAL MODELING ................................................................................................ 5 1.1. Morphological concepts ........................................................................................................... 5 1.2. Morphological modeling ....................................................................................................... 13 1.3. Modeling the human bronchial tree ....................................................................................... 26 2. A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC MODELING ........................................... 40 2.1. Morphological data and organismal features ........................................................................ 40 2.2. Morphological data, models, and organismal features ......................................................... 46 2.3. Organismal features, models, and morphological theories ................................................... 56 2.4. Multiperspectival morphological models .............................................................................. 58 3. AN ACCOMMODATIONIST VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC REALISM .......................................... 63 3.1. Correspondence truth ............................................................................................................. 65 3.2. The mind-independence of reality ......................................................................................... 66 3.3. A non-Humean account of causation .................................................................................... 67 3.4. Disciplinary matrices, architectures, and accommodation demands .................................... 69 3.5. Homeostatic property cluster natural kinds ........................................................................... 70 3.6. A causal notion of reference .................................................................................................. 73 3.7. The theory-dependence of scientific methods ....................................................................... 78 3.8. Approximate truth .................................................................................................................. 86 4. A REALIST VIEW OF MORPHOLOGICAL MODELS ........................................................... 90 4.1. Morphological modeling: A process of accommodation ..................................................... 91 4.2. The theory-dependence of model interpretation and representation .................................. 105 5. OBJECTIONS TO A REALIST VIEW OF MODELING ......................................................... 112 5.1. The underdetermination of models argument ..................................................................... 113 5.2. The conventionality of models argument ............................................................................ 116 5.3. The complexity problem ...................................................................................................... 120 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 125 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 127 VITA .................................................................................................................................................. 136 iii LIST OF FIGURES 1. Max-intensity projection of a 6 cm horizontal slab of the HRCT data displayed with inverted grey scale. Taken from Schmidt et al. (2004, p. 204). ........................................... 33 2. Bronchi surface model extracted from the bronchi segmentation model. Taken from Schmidt et al. (2004, p. 204). ........................................................................................ 34 3. Geometric surface bronchi model produced from the bronchi topology model. Taken from Schmidt et al. (2004, p. 204). ............................................................................. 35 4. Lung model with bronchi segmentation model. Taken from Schmidt et al. (2004, p. 204).......................................................................................................................................... 36 5. Pressure distributions across the 17-generation bronchi pressure model for a volumetric flow rate of 30 L per min. Taken from Gemci, Ponyavin, Chen, Chen, and Collins (2008, p. 2050). ................................................................................................... 37 6. Flowchart combining multiperspectival modeling (MPM) with Boyd’s view of reference. MPM tracks causal phenomena to produce the representation, R, which informs the definition of the natural kind, Nk, that is being referred to by the natural kind term, tk, which is also tracking the same causal phenomena underwriting the definition of Nk and the content of R. .................................................................................. 111 iv ABSTRACT In the ongoing philosophical debates between scientific realists and antirealists, scientific model- ing is often taken as an exemplar antirealist scientific methodology due to the abstract, idealized, and metaphorical nature of most scientific models. I argue against the antirealist view and in favor of a realist view of scientific modeling as it is performed in biological morphology. On my view, morphological modeling is a type of what I call multiperspectival modeling, which in- volves multiple related models deployed to represent a single target phenomenon. I show how multiperspectival morphological modeling can be incorporated into the version of scientific realism developed by Richard Boyd, known as accommodationism, based on the role modeling plays in informing the definitions of natural kind terms and on the role theoretical judgments play in model construction and deployment. I claim that multiperspectival morphological mod- els contribute to the inductive and explanatory successes of biological morphology by playing a central role in accommodating (on the one hand) the inferential, conceptual, and classificatory practices of morphology to (on the other hand) independently
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