Thinking Locally: A disunified methodology of science

A Brief Thesis Summary

This thesis is a defence of the validity and importance of bottom-up, localised, methods in science. By a localised methodology I mean a scientific methodology that is concerned with understanding and revealing the entities and causal relations in a particular situation, with a particular problem at hand, and thus particular explanatory or predictive aims. Instead of appealing to generalisations or laws in explanatory schema, a localised methodology is based on the uncovering and modelling of local causal and stochastic processes, involving locally specified capacities, properties and kinds. Accepting the validity of such approaches allows scientific discovery to be achieved via process-driven modelling, from the bottom-up, rather than via models structured from the top-down. A localised methodology can deliver powerful predictions and detailed explanations, by rejecting the central importance of fundamental laws, being open to the possibility of disunity, and focussing on solving particular problems in particular contexts rather than developing generally applicable theories.

My views are motivated by taking seriously the knowledge acquired in theories and modelling in biology, in particular for conservation ecology. Such complex sciences do not fit the standard view that philosophers have of science, a view that has been dominated by physics as a paradigm of ‘hard’ science. Yet there are many successful methods being used in conservation ecology today, essentially based on bottom-up, localised modelling. The example I focus on is Population Viability Analysis (PVA), a technique designed to determine the survival possibilities for a particular endangered species.

In defending a localised methodology I make use of many of Nancy Cartwright insights concerning the role of causation in scientific modelling. I apply these insights to the PVA approaches to conservation ecology. Through such an investigation I scrutinise and clarify Cartwright’s views on modelling, causation, and laws of nature. In doing so I show how Cartwright’s antirealism about fundamental laws, and her claim that modelling and experiment allow us to uncover the causal capacities in nature, fit extremely well with the bottom-up modelling approaches I endorse.

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Thinking Locally: A Disunified Methodology of Science

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