ABSTRACT
Evolutionary theory leads us to expect broad functional and biochemical similarities across mammalian species. However, as the arguments in the previous chapters show, evolutionary theory also explains why we cannot assume that species which are broadly similar will have identical causal mechanisms. So, although researchers can reasonably expect that animal CAMs of human biomedical phenomena will partially satisfy condition (3), they cannot expect CAMs to completely satisfy condition (3). That is, at best, an ideal they may hope to approximate in the laboratory. As Nonneman and Woodruff explain:
[T]he assumption is that to be useful a model must be completely isomorphic with that being modeled in all relevant relationships. Biomedical scientists are well aware that this is generally not the case with models they use. Indeed, there are many types of models, and their usefulness varies with the degree to which they are isomorphic with the human system or disease being modeled (1994: 7).
