Explanation

Explanation is concerned with why and how a phenomenon is as it is, rather than only with describing what is observed.

In biology, an explanation may identify mechanisms, processes, constraints, interactions, historical conditions, organisational relations, mathematical dependencies, or other relations relevant to the phenomenon under investigation. Different explanatory practices may therefore employ different methods and representations. No single technique—such as mechanistic decomposition, mathematical modelling, historical reconstruction, or conceptual analysis—defines explanation in every biological context.

Within APS, dependency provides an important comparative way of making explanatory commitments explicit. Asking what a phenomenon depends upon can clarify the conditions, processes, structures, histories, constraints, or organisational relations relevant to an explanation.

APS does not therefore treat dependency as the single universal form of explanation. Rather, dependency hypotheses provide one disciplined way of specifying and assessing explanatory relations across heterogeneous biological accounts.