"The Logical Structure of Classical Genetics"

BALZER, WOLFGANG, LORENZANO, PABLO

Journal for General Philosophy of Science

Kluwer

Año: 2000 vol. 31 p. 243 - 266

0925-4560

We present a reconstruction of so-called classical, formal or Mendelian genetics using a notation which we believe is more legible than that of earlier accounts, and lends itself easily to computer implementation, for instance in PROLOG. By drawing from, and emending, earlier work of Balzer and Dawe (1986, 1997), the present account presents the three most important lines of development of classical genetics: the so-called Mendel?s laws, linkage genetics and gene mapping, in the form of a theory-net. This shows that the set theoretic representation format used in the structuralist approach to the philosophy of science also applies to the domain of genetic theories. The reconstruction is intended to lend more clarity to the methodological, philosophical and didactical discussions of the foundations of genetics, and on the other hand to defend a formally, logically minded view of theories which seems to have become contested through the work of Feyerabend, Kuhn and Kitcher.