Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0145-4
DC Field | Value | |
---|---|---|
dc.title | Strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics: Trade-offs as a demarcation criterion between physics and biology? | |
dc.contributor.author | Gelfert, A. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2014-04-09T03:17:23Z | |
dc.date.available | 2014-04-09T03:17:23Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2013 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Gelfert, A. (2013). Strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics: Trade-offs as a demarcation criterion between physics and biology?. Synthese 190 (2) : 253-272. ScholarBank@NUS Repository. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0145-4 | |
dc.identifier.issn | 00397857 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/50026 | |
dc.description.abstract | This paper contrasts and compares strategies of model-building in condensed matter physics and biology, with respect to their alleged unequal susceptibility to trade-offs between different theoretical desiderata. It challenges the view, often expressed in the philosophical literature on trade-offs in population biology, that the existence of systematic trade-offs is a feature that is specific to biological models, since unlike physics, biology studies evolved systems that exhibit considerable natural variability. By contrast, I argue that the development of ever more sophisticated experimental, theoretical, and computational methods in physics is beginning to erode this contrast, since condensed matter physics is now in a position to measure, describe, model, and manipulate sample-specific features of individual systems-for example at the mesoscopic level-in a way that accounts for their contingency and heterogeneity. Model-building in certain areas of physics thus turns out to be more akin to modeling in biology than has been supposed and, indeed, has traditionally been the case. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. | |
dc.description.uri | http://libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0145-4 | |
dc.source | Scopus | |
dc.subject | Complexity | |
dc.subject | Mesoscopic models | |
dc.subject | Model-building | |
dc.subject | Scientific models | |
dc.subject | Trade-offs | |
dc.type | Article | |
dc.contributor.department | PHILOSOPHY | |
dc.description.doi | 10.1007/s11229-012-0145-4 | |
dc.description.sourcetitle | Synthese | |
dc.description.volume | 190 | |
dc.description.issue | 2 | |
dc.description.page | 253-272 | |
dc.identifier.isiut | 000313065500006 | |
Appears in Collections: | Staff Publications |
Show simple item record
Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.
Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.