Laws, mechanisms, and models in Biology: the case of Mendelian genetics

Abstract

The logical conceptual structure of Mendelian genetics, presented in a graph-model format, provides the context to discuss some peculiarities of relations among the concepts of law, model and mechanism are discussed. It is shown how such concepts can be considered within the same system without any contradictions. Basically, a theory is a family of models, a model is an interpretation that satisfies the postulates of the theory, that is the constraints (laws) that express the functioning of its parts, and a mechanism is a model that, in addition, permits the localization or the spatiotemporal referencing of its parts or components.