 Jason Robert’s (2004) treatment of explanation and methodology in  developmental biology  describes what is probably the main valid point stemming from the context-dependence of molecular features. While acknowledging the legitimacy of reductionist research strategies that isolate molecular causes relative to a background held fixed for experimental purposes, Robert emphasizes that this methodology does not license an inference to an exclusively reductionist position where all explanatorily relevant causes are molecular. That developmental genetics uncovers various differences between individuals that are due to differences in gene expression does not entail that genes are the only factors relevant in ontogeny. Since genetic research holds other cellular and organismal factors fixed, the causal influence of these non-genetic resources is simply not assessed by this research method. It begs the question against those who maintain that some explanations of development must invoke higher level features to assert that the organismal context can always be described molecularly. For example, an appeal to developmental genetics research success alone is inadequate for reducing cellular context to molecular causes because the discovery of genetic causes occurs against a fixed organismal background (Robert 2004). The dependence of molecular features on cellular and organismal contexts poses problems for theory reduction approaches maintaining that higher level phenomena can be deduced from purely molecular premises. (It is also a problem for claims that the embryo can be computed from a purely molecular specification of the fertilized egg, as endorsed by Rosenberg 1997; see Keller 2002, ch. 9.) Thus, there are boundaries on the kinds of explanatory inferences that can be drawn from reductionist research strategies. What remains missing from many philosophical discussions critical of reduction is an explicit account of methodological strategies and epistemological frameworks that both capture actual scientific reasoning and offer an alternative to reductionism (Love 2006, 2008; see  Section 5).