Work

How to choose your research organism

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Despite August Krogh's famous admonition that a 'convenient' organism exists for every biological problem, we argue that appeals to 'convenience' are not sufficient to capture reasoning about organism choice. Instead, we offer a detailed analysis based on empirical data and philosophical arguments for a working set of twenty criteria that interact with each other in the highly contextualized judgements that biologists make about organism choice. We propose to think of these decisions as a form of 'differential analysis' where researchers weigh multiple criteria for organismal choice against each other, and often utilize multidimensional refinement processes to finalize their choices. The specific details of any one case make it difficult to draw generalizations or to abstract away from specific research situations. However, this analysis of criteria for organismal choice and how these are related in practice allows us to reflect more generally on what makes a particular organism useful or 'good.'

Source: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2019.101227

Authors: Michael R. Dietrich, Rachel A. Ankeny, Nathan Crowe, Sara Green, Sabina Leonelli

Institutions: University of Pittsburgh, The University of Adelaide, University of North Carolina Wilmington, University of Copenhagen, University of Exeter

Language: English

Topic: Philosophy and History of Science

Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $1,100

Funder: Australian Research Council