Abstract
Although sciences are often conceptualized in terms of theory confirmation and hypothesis testing, an equally important dimension of scientific reasoning is the structure of problems that guide inquiry. This problem structure is evident in several concepts central to evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo)—constraints, modularity, evolvability, and novelty. Because problems play an important role in biological practice, they should be included in biological pedagogy, especially when treating the issue of scientific controversy. A key feature of resolving controversy is synthesizing methodologies from different biological disciplines to generate empirically adequate explanations. Concentrating on problem structure illuminates this interdisciplinarity in a way that is often ignored when science is taught only from the perspective of theory or hypothesis. These philosophical considerations can assist life science educators in their continuing quest to teach biology to the next generation.
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Notes
- 1.
Theories or hypotheses are assumed to guide inquiry: “Hypotheses are widely used in science for choosing what data to pay attention to and what additional data to seek” (AAAS 2009, ch. 1).
- 2.
“Pertaining to questioning”: derived from the Greek noun erotisis, which means “a question.”
- 3.
Claims of a recent, developmental genetic genesis for Evo-devo should be treated suspiciously. For example, “Evo-devo began in the pre-genomic era when genetic studies in Drosophila and gene cloning in Xenopus revealed that the Hox genes that control the anterior-posterior (A-P) axis were unexpectedly conserved” (De Robertis 2008, p. 186).
- 4.
These adult phenotypes were primarily exemplified in multicellular animals (metazoans), as well as some plants. Microbial phenotypes, whether morphological or behavioral, were largely neglected (see Duncan et al. this volume).
- 5.
“Theories compete for acceptance;” science is construed as “the testing, revising, and occasional discarding of theories” (AAAS 2009, ch. 1).
- 6.
The terminology of constraints connotes negativity or prevention but developmental constraints sometimes provide positive evolutionary opportunities (Gould 2002). As a result, some authors prefer “bias” as a more general designator, with “constraints” being one species of the genus (Arthur 2004). Here I do not distinguish between these different connotations and use constraint and bias interchangeably.
- 7.
Others properties underlying evolvability include the versatility of cell components, weak regulatory linkages, and exploratory behavior (see Kirschner and Gerhart 2005).
- 8.
Other controversies that might have been explored include disagreements about whether most molecular change during evolution occurs in cis-regulatory regions of the genome that control gene expression or within protein coding regions of the genome (see Hoekstra and Coyne 2007).
- 9.
Thus, ‘Mendelian’ refers to standard transmission and developmental genetic processes we find in contemporary organisms. ‘Pre-Mendelian’ signifies that these standard processes were not yet in place even though phenotypes were being generated through environmental forces interacting with soft condensed materials according to physical principles.
- 10.
Differences (‘hetero’) in development that contribute to evolutionary change can be classified according to the kind of difference in view: (i) heterochrony: differences in the timing of developmental events; (ii) heterotopy: differences in the spatial location of developmental events; (iii) heterotypy: differences in the type of developmental event, such as cavitation versus invagination; and, (iv) heterometry: differences in the amount of activity in developmental events, such as the up-regulation of gene expression (Arthur 2002).
- 11.
“The current preeminence of the molecular genetic approach to biology, in which living systems are conceptualized as networks of interacting genes and proteins, may have obscured this inevitable link between physics and biology in the mind of scientists” (Mulder 2008, p. 1643); “there has been a renewed appreciation of the fact that to understand morphogenesis in three dimensions, it is necessary to combine molecular insights (genes and morphogens) with knowledge of physical processes (transport, deformation and flow) generated by growing tissues” (Savin et al. 2011, p. 57).
- 12.
Uniformitarianism is a stronger principle that actualism. The former combines actualism and a commitment to extant causes operating with the same intensity throughout history.
- 13.
This conception, minus the metaphorical pachyderm, is present in the NSES: “The natural […] world is complex; it is too large and complicated to investigate and comprehend all at once. Students and scientists learn to define small portions for the convenience of investigation” (p. 116).
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Kostas Kampourakis for the invitation to contribute this chapter. Many of the ideas set forth here emerged in collaboration with my colleague Ingo Brigandt and I acknowledge my debt to him in working out details related to a problem-oriented conception of scientific inquiry. Wallace Arthur and Kostas Kampourakis provided helpful comments and critical feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Love, A.C. (2013). Teaching Evolutionary Developmental Biology: Concepts, Problems, and Controversy. In: Kampourakis, K. (eds) The Philosophy of Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6537-5_16
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