Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science, Molecular Prevention, Christian-Albrecht-University Kiel, Germany.
Mol Nutr Food Res. 2010 Oct;54(10):1385-404. doi: 10.1002/mnfr.201000078.
Over the past decade, a trend toward molecularization, which could be observed in almost all bioscientific disciplines, now appears to have also developed in nutritional science. However, molecular nutrition research gives birth to a series of questions. Therefore, we take a look at the epistemological foundation of (molecular) nutritional science.
We (i) analyze the scientific status of (molecular) nutritional science and its position in the canon of other scientific disciplines, (ii) focus on the cognitive aims of nutritional science in general and (iii) on the chances and limits of molecular nutrition research in particular. By taking up the thoughts of an earlier work, we are analyzing (molecular) nutritional science from a strictly realist and emergentist-naturalist perspective.
Methodologically, molecular nutrition research is bound to a microreductive research approach. We emphasize, however, that it need not be a radical microreductionism whose scientific reputation is not the best. Instead we favor moderate microreductionism, which combines reduction with integration. As mechanismic explanations are one of the primary aims of factual sciences, we consider it as the task of molecular nutrition research to find profound, i.e. molecular-mechanismic, explanations for the conditions, characteristics and changes of organisms related to the organism-nutrition environment interaction.
在过去的十年中，几乎所有生物科学学科都出现了分子化的趋势，现在看来，营养科学也出现了这种趋势。然而，分子营养研究带来了一系列问题。因此，我们来看看（分子）营养科学的认识论基础。
我们（i）分析了（分子）营养科学的科学地位及其在其他科学学科规范中的地位，（ii）重点关注营养科学的一般认知目标，以及（iii）特别是分子营养研究的机会和局限性。通过借鉴早期的研究成果，我们从严格的现实主义和突现自然主义的角度分析了（分子）营养科学。
从方法论上讲，分子营养研究必然要采用微观还原研究方法。然而，我们强调，它不一定是一种激进的微观还原论，因为其科学声誉并不好。相反，我们赞成适度的微观还原论，将还原与整合相结合。由于机制解释是事实科学的主要目标之一，我们认为分子营养研究的任务是为与机体-营养环境相互作用有关的机体的条件、特征和变化找到深刻的、即分子机制的解释。
