title: Dimensions of integration in interdisciplinary explanations of the origin of evolutionary novelty.
abstract: Many philosophers of biology have embraced a version of pluralism in response to the failure of theory reduction but overlook how concepts, methods, and explanatory resources are in fact coordinated, such as in interdisciplinary research where the aim is to integrate different strands into an articulated whole. This is observable for the origin of evolutionary novelty-a complex problem that requires a synthesis of intellectual resources from different fields to arrive at robust answers to multiple allied questions. It is an apt locus for exploring new dimensions of explanatory integration because it necessitates coordination among historical and experimental disciplines (e.g., geology and molecular biology). These coordination issues are widespread for the origin of novel morphologies observed in the Cambrian Explosion. Despite an explicit commitment to an integrated, interdisciplinary explanation, some potential disciplinary contributors are excluded. Notable among these exclusions is the physics of ontogeny. We argue that two different dimensions of integration-data and standards-have been insufficiently distinguished. This distinction accounts for why physics-based explanatory contributions to the origin of novelty have been resisted: they do not integrate certain types of data and differ in how they conceptualize the standard of uniformitarianism in historical, causal explanations. Our analysis of these different dimensions of integration contributes to the development of more adequate and integrated explanatory frameworks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States. Electronic address: aclove@umn.edu.
authors.forename: Alan C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Love
authors.affiliation: Archives of Scientific Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 347 Hillman Library, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, United States. Electronic address: lugar@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Gary L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Lugar
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D001695:Biology; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication
keywords: Cambrian Explosion; Evo–devo; Genetics; Interdisciplinarity; Physics; Reduction