This essay considers a mixed-effects modeling practice and its implications for the philosophical debate surrounding reductive explanation. Mixed-effects modeling is a species of the multilevel modeling practice, where a single model incorporates simultaneously two (or even more) levels of explanatory variables to explain a phenomenon of interest. I argue that this practice makes the position of explanatory reductionism held by many philosophers untenable, because it violates two central tenets of explanatory reductionism: single level preference and lower-level obsession.

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Polger and Shapiro (2016) claim that unlike human-made artifacts cases of multiple realization in naturally occurring systems are uncommon. Drawing on cases from systems biology, I argue that multiple realization in naturally occurring systems is not as uncommon as Polger and Shapiro initially thought. The relevant cases, which I draw from systems biology, involve generalizable design principles called network motifs which recur in different organisms and species and perform specific functions. By examining two network motifs, negative autoregulation and feed-forward loops in detail, I show that network motifs with entirely different underlying causal structures can perform the same function of interest. The article also considers the scope problem of multiple realization, namely, are cases of MR in the biological world rare?

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