Scientific Models and Biological Sex

The idea of a fictional model or a fiction in a model has been the driving force for this dissertation. In order to get a better hold of what it is that models are, I look at two prominent views and ultimately argue for model pluralism, first by analyzing physical models and then a particular case study in Systems Biology. Perhaps what we think models are depends on how we conceive of them, and it seems plausible that their ontology can change over time. The idea of fictions in models became a useful tool for dealing with a tension in discussions around biological sex in humans. It seems that the sex binary is useful in many cases, but that we have no empirical evidence for its existence. It is as though what the science says has been confused by what it assumes. In chapter 2 I argue that the sex binary is a useful fiction that stitches together levels of biological description. In order to do so I look at a model of gene-culture coevolution and a research project that involves model organisms. Finally, in chapter 3, I argue that we treat the sex binary as though it is a credentialed fiction, but that it cannot be. In this case, a credentialed fiction is both an approximation and an explanation, and I argue that the sex binary is neither an approximation of biological sex nor an explanation of it. These two chapters together should help resolve the above tension and let us hold simultaneously that the sex binary is useful while not tracking anything in biology.