Classical population genetics and the semantic approach to scientific theories

Peter Gildenhuys

pp. 273-291

in: Christopher Pincock, Marion Vorms (eds), Models and simulations 4, Synthese 190 (2), 2013.

Abstract

In what follows, I argue that the semantic approach to scientific theories fails as a means to present the Wright–Fisher formalism (WFF) of population genetics. I offer an account of what population geneticist understand insofar as they understand the WFF, a variation on Lloyd’s view that population genetics can be understood as a family of models of mid-level generality.