Reductionism in Biology 355This, however, raises the real problem which daunts antireductionism. Antire-
ductionism requires an account of explanation to vindicate its claims. Biologists
certainly do accord explanatory power to (G). But how does (G) explain? And
the same questions are raised by the other components of the antireductionist’s
claims. Thus: What certifies (PS) — the account of PS-processes given above —
as explanatory? What prevents the vast disjunction of macromolecular accounts
of the underlying mechanism of meiosis from explaining (PS) or for that matter
from explaining (G) and indeed whatever it is that (G) explains?
There is one tempting answer to this question due to Putnam [1975, 295–298]
and Garfinkel [1981], that is widely popular among antireductionists. This is the
square peg-round hole argument. On this view, explanations of why a particular
square peg goes through the round hole in a board based on considerations from
geometry are superior to explanation of the same event that advert to quantum
mechanics; the former explanations are entirely adequate and correct, and require
no supplementation, correction, or deepening by more fundamental considerations
about the material composition of the peg and board, or laws and generalizations
that they instantiate.
The reason given for this conclusion is that the latter explanation provides ir-
relevant detail and fails to identify features of the expanandum that are shared
with other similar cases. This argument makes the adequacy of one explanation
and the inadequacy of the other turn on whether information is “relevant”, not
relevant only to the causal process involved, but relevant to something else as well
— presumably our interests. No one could deny that the material composition
of peg and board, and the laws of governing it are causally relevant to the ex-
planandum. If relevance is to be judged by other criteria, These other criteria will
include our interests. Similarly, the similarity of the explanandum to others must
be understood as relative. The appeal to similarity also drags in our interests, as
Wittgenstein first noticed.
Reductionists are inclined to argue that explanations of why square pegs don’t
go through round holes which advert to geometry only are either seriously in-
complete or false: We need to add information that assures us of the rigidity of
the materials under the conditions that obtain when the peg is pushed through
the hole, and once we begin trying to make our explanation complete and cor-
rect, the relevance of the more fundamental physical facts and laws governing
them becomes clearer. Sober [1999] advances a slightly different argument against
Putnam’s conclusion that the geometrical explanation is superior, which however
has a conclusion similar to the Reductionist’s. He notes that Putnam’s argu-
ment begins by conceding that both explanations are correct, or at least equally
well supported. Accordingly he infers that the only reason Putnam can offer for
preferring the broader, geometrical explanation to the deeper physical one is our
“subjective” interests. Putnam would be better advised simply to deny that the
quantum theoretical description of the causal process instantiated by the peg and
whole is explanatory at all. But it is hard to see how one could disqualify the
quantum story as not explanatory at all, even if it were guilty of irrelevant de-