Article ID: CBB000931557

Models and Diagrams as Thinking Tools: The Case of Satellite-DNA (2007)

unapi

Suárez, Edna M. (Author)


History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 29
Pages: 177--192


Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Part of a special issue.
Language: English

Abstrac t -- The aim of the paper is to present some ideas on the transition between the material representations of phenomena in experimental systems, commonly referred as material traces or inscriptions (for instance, in an electrophoretic gel or a paper chromatography), and the more public and general representations of phenomena (including tables, diagrams, graphs and other visual and textual representations). To do so, the story of the early representations of satellite-DNA, a fraction of about 400 base-pair-long repeated sequences in eukaryotic DNA stabilized in the mid1960s, will be presented. The author argues that the practices associated to different moments of research (such as the stabilization of phenomena, the reconstruction of a process, the modeling of mechanisms or the communication of results, among others) require the construction and the translocation of meanings between different ways of representing. Special attention is given to a kind of scientific diagram used in experimental tradition to understand processes and mechanisms; following Dewey's conception of tools these diagrams are called thinking tools. Keywords -- Diagrams, thinking tools, representations, satellite-DNA, models.

...More
Included in

Article Suárez, Edna (2007) Introduction. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 141). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000931557/

Similar Citations

Article de Chadarevian, Soraya; (2003)
Relics, Replicas, and Commemorations (/isis/citation/CBB000600547/)

Article Dietrich, Michael R.; (2007)
Representing the Object of Controversy: The Case of the Molecular Clock (/isis/citation/CBB000931556/)

Article Magnani, Lorenzo; Dossena, Riccardo; (2005)
Perceiving the Infinite and the Infinitesimal World: Unveiling and Optical Diagrams in Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB000640123/)

Chapter Verboon, Annemieke R.; (2008)
Einen alten Baum verpflanzt man nicht. Die Metapher des Porphyrianischen Baums im Mittelalter (/isis/citation/CBB001211730/)

Article Wüthrich, Adrian; (2012)
Interpreting Feynman Diagrams as Visual Models (/isis/citation/CBB001212092/)

Article Kurt Plischke; Alfons Labisch; (2017)
Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte des biologischen Terminus ,Gen'. Ein Beitrag zur Modellbildung in der Biologie (/isis/citation/CBB613565817/)

Article Barahona, Ana; (2007)
Science and Representation: The Case of Genetic Maps (/isis/citation/CBB000931555/)

Article Gross, Ari; (2012)
Pictures and Pedagogy: The Role of Diagrams in Feynman's Early Lectures (/isis/citation/CBB001210782/)

Article Wright, Aaron Sidney; (2013)
The Origins of Penrose Diagrams in Physics, Art, and the Psychology of Perception, 1958--62 (/isis/citation/CBB001320290/)

Article Lynch, Michael; (2003)
God's Signature: DNA Profiling, the New Gold Standard in Forensic Science (/isis/citation/CBB000600552/)

Article Kaiser, David; (2005)
Physics and Feynman's Diagrams (/isis/citation/CBB001021587/)

Article Jones-Imhotep, Edward; (2008)
Icons and Electronics (/isis/citation/CBB000950420/)

Article Kaiser, David; Ito, Kenji; Hall, Karl; (2004)
Spreading the Tools of Theory: Feynman Diagrams in the USA, Japan, and the Soviet Union (/isis/citation/CBB000651393/)

Essay Review Sebastián Gil-Riaño; (2017)
Redemptive Ancestries: Human Population Genetics, Sex and Antiracism (/isis/citation/CBB171980785/)

Book Kaiser, David; (2005)
Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (/isis/citation/CBB000651152/)

Book Gross, Alan G.; Harmon, Joseph E.; (2014)
Science from Sight to Insight: How Scientists Illustrate Meaning (/isis/citation/CBB001551454/)

Book Rasmussen, Nicolas; (2014)
Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise (/isis/citation/CBB001552207/)

Article O'Malley, Maureen A.; Elliott, Kevin C.; Burian, Richard M.; (2010)
From Genetic to Genomic Regulation: Iterativity in MicroRNA Research (/isis/citation/CBB001023979/)

Authors & Contributors
Kaiser, David Isaac
Kurt Plischke
Rasmussen, Nicolas
Wüthrich, Adrian
Wright, Aaron Sidney
Verboon, Annemieke R.
Concepts
Visual representation; visual communication
Diagrams
Genetics
DNA; RNA
Models and modeling in science
Physics
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century, early
Medieval
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Japan
Belgium
Soviet Union
Institutions
Ghent University
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment