In Part A of the project, the research team conducted empirical studies to serve as scientific cases for the philosophical work in Part B of the project. The key topics addressed in Part A of the project were unnatural biochemical bases and organizational principles of life, synthetic life, evolutionary possibilities and constraints, and the habitability of exoplanets. Empirical studies at six leading laboratories and research institutions in Europe and the USA were used to investigate these topics. This empirical part of the project involved research visits, participant observation, informal discussions with the scientists, and interviews. Several other scholars whose work was relevant to the key issues in Part A of the project were also interviewed. The many insights into the practice of science were useful for the philosophical analysis.
Part B of the project consisted of three subprojects: “Modeling”, “Multiple Realizability”, and “Modalities”.
The subproject “Modeling”, addressed various more general aspects of scientific modeling and the study of interdisciplinary model transfer between engineering, physics and biological sciences. The main results of this work were a novel holistic account of idealization and the new notion of model template, which addresses the question of how formal methods are disseminated across disciplinary boundaries, e.g. from physics to the biological sciences. The work on interdisciplinary model templates consisted of case studies, but to track them from databases of preprints, the group also developed state-of-the-art methods of unsupervised machine learning.
The “Multiple Realizability” subproject addressed the question of whether different biological functions and capacities could be achieved by different kinds of material realizers. While the multiple realizability thesis has been contested in philosophical discussions, the project showed that multiple realizability functions as a design heuristic for practicing scientists in synthetic biology. Furthermore, the cross-disciplinary transfer of model templates suggests that materially different systems studied by different disciplines may be organized in a similar way.
In the subproject "Modalities", the group studied different aspects of biological modalities, modeling of possibilities, and different notions of possibility spaces. The main results so far include the comparison of possibility spaces in physics and biology. The work on modalities led to a new relative-modality account that is consistent with causal-manipulationist accounts of possibilities, but more attuned to actual scientific practices. Another novel result was the application of the philosophical combinatorial theory of possibility to synthetic biology.
The results of the project in all three philosophical areas are useful for working scientists, especially for modelers. During our lab visits, we gave talks on our own philosophical work, and interesting discussions with the scientists ensued. Koskinen's work on multiple realizability was mentioned in an influential article on assembly theory in Nature.
The main channels of dissemination of the results were published articles, conference presentations, and the workshops organized by the project, also in collaboration with other projects.
