Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Feb 27;365(1540):679-90. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0262.
Idealization is a reasoning strategy that biologists use to describe, model and explain that purposefully departs from features known to be present in nature. Similar to other strategies of scientific reasoning, idealization combines distinctive strengths alongside of latent weaknesses. The study of ontogeny in model organisms is usually executed by establishing a set of normal stages for embryonic development, which enables researchers in different laboratory contexts to have standardized comparisons of experimental results. Normal stages are a form of idealization because they intentionally ignore known variation in development, including variation associated with phenotypic plasticity (e.g. via strict control of environmental variables). This is a tension between the phenomenon of plasticity and the practice of staging that has consequences for evolutionary developmental investigation because variation is conceptually removed as a part of rendering model organisms experimentally tractable. Two compensatory tactics for mitigating these consequences are discussed: employing a diversity of model organisms and adopting alternative periodizations.
理想化是生物学家用于描述、建模和解释的一种推理策略，其有意背离了自然界中已知存在的特征。与其他科学推理策略类似，理想化结合了独特的优势和潜在的弱点。在模式生物中研究个体发生通常是通过建立一套胚胎发育的正常阶段来实现的，这使得不同实验室背景的研究人员能够对实验结果进行标准化比较。正常阶段是理想化的一种形式，因为它们有意忽略了已知的发育变异，包括与表型可塑性相关的变异（例如通过严格控制环境变量）。这是可塑性现象和分期实践之间的一种张力，对进化发育研究有影响，因为在使模式生物具有实验可操作性的过程中，变异被概念上移除了。讨论了两种减轻这些后果的补偿策略：使用多种模式生物和采用替代分期方法。
