Explanations in Science

Two different, but interrelated systems of explanations exist in biology, which are (a) the dichotomy of N-DEs versus H-NEs, and (b) the dichotomy of functional explanations versus evolutionary explanations. The latter system stems from the division of biology into the major areas of functional and evolutionary biology (Mayr, 1982). These two systems of explanations in biology do not have a simple relationship to one another. All functional explanations are N-DEs and all H-NEs are evolutionary, but evolutionary explanations can be either N-DEs or H-NEs. Hence it is essential not only to characterize carefully the properties of N-DEs and H-NEs, but to show which parts of biology, and especially of evolutionary biology, are nomological-deductive and which are historical narrative. 

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Robert Richards Well we ve learned what the explanation is. The maternal attachment would seem to be the fact. Now we want an explanation or an account of it. Now a lot of explanations in science have that character that you said to know that heavy bodies fall faster than lighter bodies, which is of course true of air resistance and so forth, but to understand the principles of fall does seem to have. .. 

Since the publication over a quarter of a century ago of my original paper Philosophical Foundations of Classical Evolutionary Classification, I have become increasingly interested in systems of explanation in science and especially in evolutionary biology (see Bock, 1978, 1981, 1988, 1991, 1992, 2000 Szalay and Bock, 1991). This was prompted by concerns in 1974 when I introduced into systematics Popper s ideas that the nature of explanation and the methods of testing theoretical statements in classification and phylogeny do not fit easily or at all into the Popperian mold. 

N-DEs are the standard form of explanation in science and take the following form. Given a set of facts (e.g., initial and boundary conditions) and a set of laws (be they causes, processes, or outcomes see Bock 1993), both of which form the explanatory sentence, or explanans, a particular conclusion, or explanandum, follows (Hempel and Oppenheim 1948 Hempel 1965 335-338). N-DEs answer the question, how has a particular phenomenon [explanandum] occurred N-DEs apply to universal (nonlimited sets of phenomena) and... 

Fields within Evolutionary Biology Popper and Historical Analyses Explanations in Science... 

The sequence just outlined provides a salutary lesson in the nature of explanation in materials science. At first the process was a pure mystery. Then the relationship to the shape of the solid-solubility curve was uncovered that was a partial explanation. Next it was found that the microstructural process that leads to age-hardening involves a succession of intermediate phases, none of them in equilibrium (a very common situation in materials science as we now know). An understanding of how these intermediate phases interact with dislocations was a further stage in explanation. Then came an nnderstanding of the shape of the GP zones (planar in some alloys, globniar in others). Next, the kinetics of the hardening needed to be... 

Something else should be said about the impact of accommodation- When the (general) theory concerned is strongly supported independently of the fact at issue, the accommodation of some fact, even in this ad hoc way, may well still supply the best explanation that science can currently supply for that fact. So, for example, the best explanation in, say, 1700 for the observation of no stellar parallax was surely the Copemican one—that there must in fact be an apparent parallactic motion but that even the nearest stars are so far away as to make the effect too small to be detected by even the best available telescopes. (Here, as before with Ptolemy and with scientific creationism, we use the phenomenon—no observed parallax—to fix (in this case in a rather loose way) an otherwise free parameter in the theory (distance to the nearest star).)... 

By adopting a perspective from the philosophy of science I will attempt to cross levels of complexity from the most elementary chemical explanations based on electron shells to those based on ab initio methods. Such a juxtaposition is seldom contemplated in the chemical literature. Textbooks provide elementary explanations which necessarily distort the full details but allow for a more conceptual or qualitative grasp of the main ideas. Meanwhile the research literature focuses on the minute details of particular methods or particular chemical systems and does not typically examine the kind of explanation that is being provided. To give a satisfactory discussion of explanation in the context of the periodic table we need to consider both elementary and deeper explanations within a common framework. 

This explanation of states of aggregation was mnch later in the history of science than it is in most cnrricnla. In science edncation, it is nsnally a topic of the first year... 

Oversby, J. (2000). Models in explanations of chemistry The case of acidity. In J. K. Gilbert C. J. Boulter (Eds.), Developing models in. science education. Dordrecht/Boston/London Kluwer academic publishers. 

Mitra, Pabir. Explanations in the history of science A study of the interpretation of hermetic influence on the 16th and 17th century science. Organon 20 (1985) 81-104. 

The reason is simple. If the aim of science is explanation and explanations in functional biology are adequate, complete, and correct, then the methodological prescription that we must search for molecular completions, corrections, or foundations of these functional explanations in molecular processes, will be unwarranted. Consequently, molecular biology need not be the inevitable foundation for every compartment of functional biology. If the aim of science is explanation, and functional explanations are either false or incomplete, and molecular explanations either (more) correct or (more) complete, then biology must act on the methodological prescription... 

Insofar as science seeks to complete this (really) real explanation for historical events and patterns on this planet, it needs to pursue a reductionists research program. This is, biology can nowhere remain satisfied with how-possibly ultimate explanations, it must seek why-necessary proximate explanations, and it must seek these explanations in the interaction of macromolecules. 

Dray, W. (1957), Law and Explanation in History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Feyerabend, P. (1964), Reduction, Empiricism and Laws, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. Ill, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. 

Figure 9.1. Measured and fitted global annual industrial age As production, (a) by mining (b) released by coal burning (c) released by petroleum burning and (d) gross annual release into the environment (See explanations in the text) (after Han et al., 2003b. Reprinted from Naturwissenschaften, 90, Han F.X., Su Y., Monts D.L., Plodinec M.J., Banin A., Triplett G.B., Assessment of global industrial-age anthropogenic arsenic contamination, pp 396-397, Copyright (2003), with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media)...

As a consequence, I would like to develop a working explanation or, perhaps more accurately, a schematic taxonomy for the particular kind of "knowledge-discipline" we find in science. My scheme is explicitly not a sociological model. In contrast, I draw on the notion of the construction of historical identities. In practice, national or ethnic identity may be conflated with professional or disciplinary identity, in a way that actually integrates the notions of "tradition" and "school" with that of our historical understanding of "discipline." In this explanation, the school is best understood by analogy to an extended family rather than to a nuclear group at one site. 

By and large, a pejorative view of the methodological sophistication of chemical science has prevailed, notably, in comparison to physics. The structure of scientific explanation in chemistry often has been deemed child s play, or kitchen work. Chemistry frequently is characterized as a handmaiden, "like the maid occupied with daily civilization she is busy with fertilizers, medicines, glass, [and] insecticides. .. for which she dispenses the recipes."3 The Toulouse physicist Henri Bouasse enraged his colleague Paul Sabatier, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1912, by jibing that chemists only aim to "faire la cuisine."4... 

In order to anticipate the effect of a problem-solving mindset on classes other than physical chemistry, it is useful to consider the genesis of the mindset and ask the question Why did so many of the students in this study have a problem-solving mindset A possible explanation is conditioning. As mentioned above, the students in this study had years of experience in science and math classes before they came to physical chemistry and most of these classes, both at the university level and before, were organized around a central theme of solving problems and exercises. 

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