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Message in the Bottle: The Constraints of Experimentation on Model Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jay Odenbaugh
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Abstract

Some ecologists have argued that theoretical model building in population and community ecology has gone evidentially unconstrained. In the essay, I argue that “bottle experiments” offer ecological model building evidential constraints and illustrate this by considering work on chaotic models tested by the dynamics of flour beetles. Critics reply that these experiments are importantly unlike nonmanipulated natural systems and thus do not constitute genuine tests of the models. I conclude by considering two responses to this worry and a suggestion on how to move forward on this debate.

Type
Strategies of Modeling in Biology and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Miriam Solomon , December 2006 , pp. 720 - 729
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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