Rouse, Joseph (2024) Niches and Niche Construction in Biology and Scientific Practice. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Concepts of an organism’s biological environment and of niche construction as how organisms alter their environment and that of other organisms now play prominent roles in multiple sub-fields of biology, including ecology, evolution, and development. Some philosophers now use these concepts to understand the dynamics of scientific research. Others note divergences among the concepts of niche and niche construction employed in these biological fields, with implications for their possible conceptual integration. My (Rouse 2015) account of scientific research as niche constructive and of laws and lawful invariance in scientific practice illuminates these conceptual differences and their implications for integrating those domains of biological research in two ways. First, it accounts for the partial autonomy of these domains and their concepts as characteristic of scientific conceptual development. Second, it provides a more complex understanding of how research domains can be integrated, which shows how those different conceptions of niches and niche construction do not block their appropriate integration. The conclusion situates my account and its application to niche concepts both amid other philosophical uses of niche concepts to understand research environments and as exemplifying my revisionist conception of philosophical naturalism.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Rouse, Joseph jrouse@wesleyan.edu 0000-0003-3928-7937
Keywords:	niche; niche construction; scientific practice; ecology; evolution; developmental biology; scientific unification; naturalism
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Ecology/Conservation Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Laws of Nature General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User:	Joseph Rouse
Date Deposited:	07 Aug 2024 15:44
Last Modified:	07 Aug 2024 15:44
Item ID:	23771
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology Specific Sciences > Biology > Ecology/Conservation Specific Sciences > Biology > Evolutionary Theory General Issues > Laws of Nature General Issues > Theory Change
Date:	5 August 2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23771

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