Abstract
This paper is an interpretation and defense of Richard Levins’ “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology,” which has been extremely influential among biologists since its publication 40 years ago. In this article, Levins confronted some of the deepest philosophical issues surrounding modeling and theory construction. By way of interpretation, I discuss each of Levins’ major philosophical themes: the problem of complexity, the brute-force approach, the existence and consequence of tradeoffs, and robustness analysis. I argue that Levins’ article is concerned, at its core, with justifying the use of multiple, idealized models in population biology.
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Notes
I put this point carefully because some models are studied for their intrinsic interest, with no expectation that a real-world phenomenon corresponds to them. Analyses of perpetual motion machine models, three-sex biology models, and models of non-aromatic cyclohexatriene are examples of such a situation.
For further discussion about this issue and the strategies of abstraction employed to deal with it, see Richard Levins’ contribution to this volume.
I thank Glen Ierley for pointing out why many theorists see this as the main advantage of analytical solutions.
In conversation, Grigori Mints suggested that such a full analysis gives you essentially everything you would want from an analytical solution. Thus it is not entirely clear that such a full characterization isn’t some form of an analytical solution, although not an algebraic solution expressed in closed form.
The epistemolgical issues raised by computational science is one of the major themes of Humphreys (2004).
Levins (1993) contains a more detailed discussion of realism, and is the source for the broader interpretation of its scope.
One possible way for Levins to avoid the conflaction of the brute-force approach and the first strategy is to point out that there are different loci for generality. One may be committed to a research program that is highly general, but which will require brute-force models for individual phenomena. So the techniques can remain general, while the individual models are not. Perhaps this allows for a brute force strategy that is not, strictly speaking, the first strategy of model building.
Subsequent research (e.g., Seger and Brockmann 1987) has called in to question whether this particular phenomenon is actually robust.
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Acknowledgements
This article developed out of several years’ reflection about Richard Levins’ methodological work, which Peter Godfrey-Smith first introduced me to at Stanford. I thank Peter, Brett Calcot, Marc Feldman, Patrick Forber, Richard Lewontin, Elisabeth Lloyd, John Mathewson, Jay Odenbaugh, Ken Reisman, Joan Roughgarden, Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Kim Sterelny, Angela Potochnik, Michael Strevens, Ward Watt, and Bill Wimsatt for many extremely stimulating discussions about Levins’ ideas. Thanks also to the attendees of the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium conference on “The Strategy” and Levins’ work, but special thanks go to my colleagues Zoltan Domotor, Gary Hatfield, and Scott Weinstein. All those who have worked with Dick Levins will know how stimulating and intellectually generous he is. He has answered innumerable questions and given very stimulating feedback. Along with other philosophers of biology writing about modeling and idealization, I owe him the utmost thanks for his kindness and support.
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Weisberg, M. Forty Years of ‘The Strategy’: Levins on Model Building and Idealization. Biol Philos 21, 623–645 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-006-9051-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-006-9051-9