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The Importance of Constraints and Control in Biological Mechanisms: Insights from Cancer Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

William Bechtel
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Abstract

Research on diseases such as cancer reveals that primary mechanisms, which have been the focus of study by the new mechanists in philosophy of science, are often subject to control by other mechanisms. Cancer cells employ the same primary mechanisms as healthy cells but control them differently. I use cancer research to highlight just how widespread control is in individual cells. To provide a framework for understanding control, I reconceptualize mechanisms as imposing constraints on flows of free energy, with control mechanisms operating on flexible constraints in primary mechanisms. I argue that control mechanisms themselves often form complex, integrated networks.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 85 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 573 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I thank Sara Green and Jason Winning for extremely helpful comments on previous drafts of this article and discussion of topics mentioned in it. I also thank anonymous reviewers for this journal for valuable suggestions.

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