TY  - JOUR
A1  - Baedke, Jan
A1  - Schöttler, Tobias
T1  - Visual Metaphors in the Sciences
BT  - the Case of Epigenetic Landscape Images
JF  - Journal for General Philosophy of Science
N2  - Recent philosophical analyses of the epistemic dimension of images in the sciences show a certain trend in acknowledging potential roles of these images beyond their merely decorative or pedagogical functions. We argue, however, that this new debate has yet paid little attention to a special type of pictures, we call ‘visual metaphor’, and its versatile heuristic potential in organizing data, supporting communication, and guiding research, modeling, and theory formation. Based on a case study of Conrad Hal Waddington’s epigenetic landscape images in biology, we develop a descriptive framework applicable to heuristic roles of various visual metaphors in the sciences.
KW  - Conrad Hal Waddington
KW  - Epigenetic landscape
KW  - Modelling
KW  - Scientific images
KW  - Theory formation
KW  - Visual metaphor
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-016-9353-9
SN  - 0925-4560
SN  - 1572-8587
VL  - 48
SP  - 173
EP  - 194
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -