Models & animals
What makes a model organism a model organism?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Not just fame or a genome, but versatility: standardized organisms (Drosophila, Xenopus, Arabidopsis) support many targets and strategies over time (T-scope and S-scope).
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Model organisms are marked by versatility across targets and strategies over time, not merely fame or a genome.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Inspect source passages
What makes a model organism a model organism?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
Why they matter?
Prevailing empirical practices within the biological and biomedical sciences could not be understood without the use of a swathe of so-called model organis
Examples?
fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster , the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis , and the thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana . Recognizing its undeniable heuristi
Key findings
Versatility is grounded in the fact that model organisms are standardized — material, integrated systems with evolutionary history. That is why they are heuristically and explanatorily central, and why their insights differ from those of non-model experimental organisms.
Methodology
The authors place model organisms at the centre of biomedical practice, distinguish insights they yield from other experimental organisms, and analyse diachronic target versatility and related scopes, noting compatibility with Larraín on representational power.
Limitations
This is philosophy of scientific practice, not a new fly experiment. It does not rank every species.
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