Acta Biotheoretica最新文献

{"title":"William Wimsatt, Donald Campbell, and the Idea of Robustness","authors":"Morgan Thompson","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09543-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09543-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, I chart the influence of social scientist Donald Campbell’s work on William Wimsatt’s ideas of robustness reasoning. One reason is that Campbell’s work is less familiar in the broader philosophy of science literature. Another is that Wimsatt’s famous 1981 paper on robustness was originally published in a Festschrift for Campbell and cited the three major works discussed here: on pattern-matching, on definitional operationism, and on the multitrait, multimethod matrix analysis of construct validity. I highlight some questions in contemporary debates in robustness reasoning: what is (are) the function(s) of robustness, the problem of discordant evidence, and the unification of robustness reasoning. I argue that some debates can be traced back to ideas present in both Campbell’s and Wimsatt’s work. Here I appeal to some unpublished notes and correspondence from Campbell as support and to coherence with Wimsatt’s larger philosophical framework. I propose that some resolution can be found there as well, through Wimsatt’s idea of robustness as a heuristic.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13635016/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149101720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Measuring Biological Processes, Counting Biological Individuals, and the Botanical Conception of the Organism","authors":"Özlem Yilmaz Silverman","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09542-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09542-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Biological individuality constitutes a broad and continuously expanding literature in philosophy of biology. The two new books reviewed here offer detailed examinations of kinds of individual (Clarke) and the organism (Baedke). While it is beyond the limits of this essay to settle whether “biological individuals” means organisms only or not, I briefly describe these concepts and talk about how they are examined in the two books. Looking into scientific practices is crucial for understanding the concepts of biological individuality and organism. I particularly draw on Clarke’s work to investigate the initial stages of research processes and present my own argument pointing to an attitude difference that involves conceptualizing different kinds of individuals: either having measurement-related considerations first or counting-related considerations first. I also argue for the importance of looking into plant sciences (including plant stress research) and their history for researching the conceptual challenges faced by organism-centered biology that Baedke points out. Examining practices in botany and history of botany are indispensable for understanding biological individuals and the organism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148986312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Balance Between Order and Disorder: Quantum-Epigenetic Pathways for the Emergence and Continuous Evolution of Life","authors":"Matheus Correia Casotti,&nbsp;Camilly Victoria Campanharo,&nbsp;Daniel Moreira Melo,&nbsp;Debora Gonçalves Barbosa,&nbsp;Gabriel da Cruz Simões,&nbsp;Isabele Pagani Pavan,&nbsp;Lorena Souza Castro Altoé,&nbsp;Lorena Souza Rittberg Mauricio,&nbsp;Maria Eliza Soares Queiroz,&nbsp;Tamires de Almeida Angelos,&nbsp;Victor Alves Lopes,&nbsp;Yasmin Moreto Guaitolini,&nbsp;Adriana Madeira Álvares da Silva,&nbsp;Cleocir José Dalmaschio,&nbsp;Marcelo Victor Pires de Sousa,&nbsp;Rafael de Queiroz Ferreira,&nbsp;Flavia de Paula,&nbsp;Iúri Drumond Louro,&nbsp;Débora Dummer Meira","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09541-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09541-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The scientific restlessness surrounding the question of what life is (expressed in the provocations of Feynman and Schrödinger) guides this review article by integrating physics, chemistry, and biology into a multidimensional and emergent approach to the origin, evolution, and recreation of life. By exploring classical and quantum concepts, we discuss how synthetic biology, combined with epigenetics, ploidy variation, and quantum effects (such as coherence and tunneling) offers new possibilities for adapting and designing living systems. This review covers a spectrum of topics, from prebiotic chemistry experiments and the construction of protocells to practical applications in regenerative medicine, bioengineering, and astrobiology. It highlights how changes in the number of chromosome sets influence cellular plasticity and shape dynamic epigenetic environments, fostering the emergence of adaptive properties. It also explores how such factors could steer regeneration, aging, cancer development, and the expansion of life into extreme and extraplanetary environments. Based on an integrative review of scientific literature, relevant publications were selected on topics such as biological complexity, molecular organization, and adaptive strategies, with emphasis on the convergence between natural and artificial life. By considering the balance between disorder and order as a driving force of evolution, this review proposes that a deep understanding of life, anchored in a quantum-epigenetic perspective, is essential for its manipulation, restoration, and expansion. Thus, it suggests that the key to designing new forms of life lies in understanding complexity as the foundation for biotechnological innovation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10441-026-09541-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148982071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Causal Explanation from a Conceptual Engineering Perspective: Non-Reductionism, Precision, and Pluralism","authors":"Jaehyun Lee,&nbsp;Lauren N. Ross","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09538-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09538-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While projects in philosophy of science often focus on similar sorts of topics, there are often massive differences in how philosophers approach them. One approach that has enjoyed significant success—and that is modeled in the work of Wimsatt and others—involves taking a conceptual engineering perspective in analyzing these topics. In this paper, we outline main features of this conceptual engineering approach and use it to advance three emerging claims regarding causal explanation in biology and neuroscience. We suggest that causal explanation in these domains is <i>non-reductive</i> in contrast to always requiring (or improving with) lower-level details, that it is guided by <i>precise</i> explanatory targets in contrast to complete or multidimensional explanatory targets, and that it is <i>pluralist</i> in involving importantly distinct types of causal systems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10441-026-09538-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148899997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is Gene-centric Molecular Biology a Schrödingerian Affair? A Review of Daniel J. Nicholson’s What is Life? Revisited","authors":"Markus Mikael Weckström","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09540-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09540-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>For more than 80 years, Erwin Schrödinger’s <i>What is Life?</i> has inspired discussions on the nature of life and the physics-biology relationship – and through all those decades, it has been interpreted in almost entirely opposite ways. While some scholars have regarded it as a defence of antireductionism in biological thinking, others have seen the book as precisely grounding the gene-centric visions of past-century molecular biology. Daniel J. Nicholson’s <i>What is Life? Revisited</i> is a recent and notably dedicated approach to the latter reading, from a critical point of view. In this review, I engage in systematic dialogue with each major claim made by Nicholson in his book, approaching them from contrasting but constructive directions. I conclude by proposing a diagnosis of why <i>What is Life?</i> has been read in such radically divergent ways, and by showing how there is a way to follow either line of interpretation to the same ultimate conclusion, which is that gene-centrism seems to be a dead end.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148837887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial Pattern Formation in a Reaction Diffusion Model of Lassa Fever with Adaptive Mobility and Environmental Spillover","authors":"Olumuyiwa James Peter,&nbsp;Azhar Iqbal Kashif Butt,&nbsp;Sharifah Sakinah Syed Ahmad,&nbsp;Fatemah H. H. Al Mukahal","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09537-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09537-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Zoonotic diseases, such as Lassa fever, have complicated spatiotemporal dynamics that are influenced by human migration, behavioural responses to infection risk, and environmental transmission via animal reservoirs. Classical spatial epidemic models frequently assume static mobility and ignore the link between disease frequency and movement, limiting their ability to capture geographical variability. In this paper, we present a network-based reaction-diffusion model in which human mobility adjusts to local infection incidence, while infection pressure is maintained via zoonotic spillover and environmental contamination. The model analysis shows that adaptive mobility reorganizes epidemic spread into multiple dynamical regimes, such as homogenized diffusion, wave-like propagation, spatial localization, and suppression-driven extinction. Intermediate levels of mobility suppression encourage spatial heterogeneity, resulting in long-lasting infection hotspots even in well-connected networks. Environmental transmission further sustains infection in regimes where human-to-human transmission alone is insufficient for persistence. To quantify long-term outcomes, we introduce measures of cumulative infection burden, environmental exposure, and spatial dominance across parameter space. The findings underscore the possible limitations of mobility suppression as a management method in endemic zoonotic settings, as well as the importance of environmental transmission in determining disease dynamics. This concept sheds fresh light on spillover-driven persistence and hotspot generation in spatially structured populations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148615080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pitchfork Bifurcation in a Coupled Cell System","authors":"Shikhar Raj,&nbsp;Biplab Bose","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09536-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09536-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Various biological phenomena, like cell differentiation and pattern formation in multicellular organisms, are explained using bifurcation theory. Molecular network motifs such as positive feedback and mutual repression exhibit bifurcations and are responsible for the emergence of diverse cell types. Mathematical investigations of such problems usually focus on bifurcations in a molecular network within individual cells. However, in a multicellular organism, cells interact, and intercellular interactions affect individual cell dynamics. Therefore, bifurcations in an ensemble of cells could differ from those for a single cell. This work considers a ring of identical cells. When independent, each cell exhibits a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. Using analytical and numerical tools, we investigate bifurcations in this ensemble when cells interact through positive or negative coupling. We show that within a specific parameter zone, an ensemble of positively coupled cells behaves like a single cell that can undergo a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. In this regime, the system is homogeneous, with all cells at the same steady state. However, this unique behaviour is lost when cells interact through negative coupling. Apart from the homogeneous states, cell-cell coupling can lead to heterogeneous steady states with unique patterns. We also investigate the distribution of such heterogeneous states under positive and negative coupling.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148590148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neoteny and Evolutionary Strategy: Reconsidering Developmental Arrest in the Axolotl and the Olm","authors":"Martine Mussies","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09535-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09535-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article examines neoteny and regressive evolution in two emblematic amphibian species: <i>Ambystoma mexicanum</i> (axolotl) and <i>Proteus anguinus</i> (olm). Rather than framing larval persistence and trait loss as evolutionary shortcomings, the paper proposes an alternative interpretation in which developmental arrest functions as a viable population-level outcome of selection under specific ecological constraints, rather than as a developmental shortcoming. Drawing on evo–devo literature, endocrine regulation of metamorphosis, and comparative life-history analysis, the study argues that both species exemplify non-teleological evolutionary pathways. By foregrounding strategy over deficiency, the article contributes to broader debates on normativity, progress, and directionality in evolutionary biology.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13395908/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148560592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Publisher Correction: Assessing the Impact of Vaccination Strategies on COVID-19 Dynamics Via Time-varying Copulas","authors":"Atina Ahdika,&nbsp;Muhammad Fakhruddin,&nbsp;Putu Veri Swastika","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09532-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09532-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148443662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Re-Engineering Wimsatt for Limited Beings","authors":"Johannes Jaeger,&nbsp;Marcus Neustetter","doi":"10.1007/s10441-026-09534-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10441-026-09534-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Science is the best way to produce facts about reality. The best, at least, that limited human beings have devised so far. Yet, not even scientists quite seem to understand how scientific knowledge is generated. This is not only a philosophical but also a practical problem, as our misunderstandings affect the quality of our research and limit the directions it can take. In light of this, it may be good if we reflected a bit more on how we do science — to become better researchers through philosophy. Here, I provide an accessible introduction to a philosophical approach that achieves precisely this: William Wimsatt’s <i>multi-perspectival realism</i>. It disabuses us of widespread but misleading myths and idealizations about science, such as the idea that everything in the world can be reduced to a fundamental level, or that we can approach a “view from nowhere” — complete and objectively detached knowledge of the world. Wismatt proposes an alternative view based on his thorough studies of actual research practice. It cuts deeply into the layered yet messy structure of reality, and the improvised but potent tools we have available, as limited and evolved beings, to explore it. Wimsatt reframes science as an irregular yet adaptive process rather than a cumulative repository of unalterable facts. His philosophy provides a workable and grounded middle way between radical skepticism and naïve belief in the objective truth of science. It explains how knowledge <i>is</i> conceptually constructed by humans, but still connects us to reality in a trustworthy way. We need such a new view of science, not only to improve our research practices and outcomes but, more generally, to gain a more realistic understanding of ourselves, the world, and our place and role within it.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7057,"journal":{"name":"Acta Biotheoretica","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2026-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148380310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}