How do networks explain? A neo-hempelian approach tonetwork explanations of the ecology of the microbiome

Abstract

Despite the importance of network analysis in biological practice, dominant modelsof scientific explanation do not account satisfactorily for how this family of explanationsgain their explanatory power in every specific application. This insufficiencyis particularly salient in the study of the ecology of the microbiome. Drawing onCoyte et al. (2015) study of the ecology of the microbiome, Deulofeu et al. (2021)argue that these explanations are neither mechanistic, nor purely mathematical, yetthey are substantially empirical. Building on their criticisms, in the present work wemake a step further elucidating this kind of explanations with a general analyticalframework according to which scientific explanations are ampliative, specializedembeddings (ASE), which has recently been successfully applied to other biologicalsubfields. We use ASE to reconstruct in detail the Coyte et al.’s case study andon its basis, we claim that network explanations of the ecology of the microbiome,and other similar explanations in ecology, gain their epistemological force in virtueof their capacity to embed biological phenomena in non-accidental generalizationsthat are simultaneously ampliative and specialized.