Abstracts of Papers:
Thursday, July 17, 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
I Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session One: Innateness
William Wimsatt (University of Chicago), "Extending Generative Entrenchment"
No Abstract
Andre Ariew, University of Rhode Island, "Wimsatt on Generative Entrenchment."
William Wimsatt (1986) offers the concept of generative entrenchment to account for (nearly all) the philosophical and ethological claims about innateness. Traits are generatively entrenched to the degree that they have a number of later developing traits depending on them. On Wimsatt's analysis a new distinction in terms of generative entrenchment should replace the more common innate/acquired distinction. I disagree. On the view presented in this essay, the innate/acquired distinction does not need replacing. Rather, I shall argue, many of the philosophical and ethological claims that Wimsatt seeks to preserve require scrutiny. From this viewpoint an account of innateness based on the concept of canalization does a better job than does Wimsatt's generative entrenchment account. A trait is canalized to the degree that its developmental outcome is environmentally invariant.
Dan McShea, Duke, "Feeling: the Proximate Cause of Behavior"
I argue that in mammals (at least), complex behavior is caused by mental structures intermediate between stimulus and action. These structures are the feelings or motivations. They cause behavior by providing general goals but without specifying particular actions. The feelings are many, distinct, and situation-specific; the complete repertoire of feelings which members of a species normally experience, each weighted according to its situation-specific intensity, is the species feeling profile.
Mammals use various perceptual and cognitive devices to interpret the world and to anticipate future events. Interpretations and anticipations in turn evoke feelings, which motivate behavior. In a given situation, many feelings may be evoked, orienting the animal to a number of different purposes at once. The ensuing struggle among feelings for supremacy is the essence of decision-making, and behavior is the result of the triumph of one feeling, or coalition of feelings, over all others. Differences in how situations are interpreted, in how they are presented to the feeling profile, vary among individuals, producing differences in behavior. In humans (at least), interpretative schemes also vary systematically among groups, accounting for cultural differences in behavior. I argue, however, that almost all intraspecific variation in behavior is consistent with a species-universal feeling profile.
Finally, I offer an account of the feeling profile and of its relation to behavior in terms of Wimsatt's (1986) and Salthe's (1993) developmental models.
II Evolution as an (In-)Deterministic Process, Organizer: Timothy Shanahan Loyola Marymount University (email:
In a number of recent works philosophers of biology have crossed swords on the issue of whether evolutionary theory is an essentially statistical theory. Alexander Rosenberg (1994) and Barbara Horan (1994) have argued that while our best theory of evolution is likely to remain statistical, the actual process of evolution should be understood as a deterministic process. Robert Brandon and Scott Carson (1996), and Roberta Millstein (1996), on the other hand, maintain that both evolutionary theory and at least some of the processes it describes must be understood statistically. This debate raises a number of important issues concerning evolutionary biology: (1) Is evolutionary theory essentially a statistical theory? (2) Does the statistical nature of canonical formulations of evolutionary theory entail that evolutionary processes are themselves indeterministic? (3) Is there a source of indeterminism in evolution that is independent of any indeterminism introduced by the nature of fundamental physical processes? (4) Do the concepts of "fitness" and "drift" render evolutionary theory necessarily statistical? (5) What role might thought-experiments play in answering these questions? (6) What bearing, if any, does the issue of the statistical nature of evolutionary theory have on the ongoing realism/antirealism debate in the philosophy of science? The purpose of this symposium is: (1) to bring together some of the participants in this debate; (2) to summarize the arguments deployed on each side; (3) to identify points of agreement; (4) to isolate key issues that still divide participants; (5) to see how far these differences can be bridged; and (6) to assess the prospects for an eventual consensus on these issues.
Session One
Scott Carson, Ohio University, "Bell's Proof and the Stochastic Nature of Evolutionary Processes"
Evolutionary theory (ET) is replete with statistical generalizations. Some of the most fundamental concepts in the theory, such as drift and natural selection, can perhaps best be characterized as stochastic processes. There is a traditional metaphysical view that says that such generalizations reflect something about us and our epistemic limitations rather than something about the external world and the underlying ontological structure of reality. Since John Bell's redoubtable work in the 1960s it has been known that this traditional metaphysical view cannot be true for another scientific theory in which statistical generalizations play an important role: quantum mechanics (QM). But in the case of QM Bell's work provided a proof that a deterministic, hidden-variables account of these generalizations is not possible; in ET no such proof has yet been found, nor is one likely to be. This raises several important questions for the philosopher of biology. (1) Do the statistical generalizations of ET reflect a genuinely indeterministic process underlying the phenomena that they describe; (2) If there are reasons for thinking the answer to (1) is "yes", can this fact be proven in a manner similar to that used by Bell for QM? (3) If the answer to (2) is "no", are there nevertheless reasons for thinking that the answer to (1) is still "yes"? I will argue that the answers to these questions are, respectively, yes, no, and yes. In particular, I will maintain that even Bell's proof is convincing about the indeterministic character of QM only given certain antecedent assumptions and that, if that is so, it is reasonable to postulate similar antecedent assumptions about ET that support a similar conclusion about the stochastic nature of the processes described therein, and that this has important consequences for instrumentalists, realists, and anti-realists alike.
Roberta Millstein, University of Minnesota, "Determinism vs. Indeterminism: Either Way, Evolution Is Probabilistic," Rosenberg (1994) and Horan (1994) argue that although evolutionary theory is statistical, it has this character purely for instrumental reasons; the evolutionary process is a deterministic one. Brandon and Carson (1996) challenge Rosenberg's and Horan's claims; instead, they maintain that a scientific realist should conclude that the evolutionary process is fundamentally indeterministic. I will argue that a more philosophically defensible position argues neither for the fundamental determinacy nor indeterminacy of the evolutionary process. However, even without making these kinds of empirical claims, we can still make arguments concerning the probabilistic character of evolution. That is, it remains an open question as to whether evolution is inherently and unavoidably probabilistic. Brandon and Carson (1994), as well as Sober (1984), maintain that even if evolution is deterministic at the individual level, it is probabilistic at the population level. While I am essentially in sympathy with these arguments, I don't think they make their case as strongly as they might. I seek to show that even if one assumes that the evolutionary process is fundamentally deterministic, the status of natural selection and random drift as population-level processes implies that evolutionary theory is inherently (and unavoidably) probabilistic.
III Teaching Darwin and Darwinism. The principal objective of the symposium is to share resources, experiences, and techniques in exploring Darwin the scientist, Darwin the thinker, Darwin and Darwinism in its Victorian context, and Darwin and Darwinism today. Interdisciplinary approaches and innovative teaching methods would be the focus of attention. Organizers: David Blitz (
Session One:
1. Prof. Robert Hartwig, Department of Business Administration and
Economics, Worcester State College, "Darwinian Revolution: An Integrative Approach Featuring Biology and Economics at Worcester State College
2. Prof. Surindar Paracer, Department of Biology, Worcester State
College, Worcester, MA 01602, "Darwinian Revolution: An Integrative Approach Featuring Biology and Economics at Worcester State College"
We will discuss the organization of a course that we jointly taught on Darwin's theory of evolution and social applications, focusing principally on biology and economics, as presented in a course at Worcester State College to a group of non-biology majors fulfilling their science requirement. The presentation will include: choice of reading materials, including original readings from Darwin and his precursors, commentators and critics. Pedagogic methods, theoretical problems in examining natural selection as a biological concept and its application in the economic sphere in theories of competition, as well as contrasting points of view based on mutual aid, symbiosis, cooperation, and game theory as models of human interactions will be explored. The course also examined Darwin's influence on many areas of intellectual endeavor over the last 140 years such as music, literature and psychology. We will evaluate our teaching strategies aimed at developing an interdisciplinary dialogue. Student responses to the course will all be analyzed.
IV Images of the Brain in History. Contributions could include images of the brain in classical antiquity; in medieval thought; in the seventeenth century; in modern times. Hopefully the session would show how our vision/understanding of the brain has been influenced throughout history by social, metaphysical and scientific concerns. The precise form the symposium takes will be decided in the light of the response to this call for papers. Organizer: C. U. M. Smith (
C.U.M.Smith, Aston University, "The Brain A Machine?"
That the brain is a machine has been a dominant image since René Descartes first proposed it in the seventeenth century. Indeed several prominent workers have maintained that at root contemporary neurophysiology has departed but little from Descartes' early vision (1,2,3). In this paper I consider Descartes' 'hydraulic' neurophysiology, what his notion of a machine amounted to and how far that notion still applies in modern times. I show that the machine image with its implication of automaticity has greatly evolved since the times of the Francini brothers in the early seventeenth century. If the image of the brain as a machine is still powerful in our age of AI and connectionist computers it is a very different image than that which Descartes posthumously published in 1662. It is also argued that Descartes' micromechanistic paradigm sits awkwardly with the predominantly morphological understandings of modern molecular neurobiology. Perhaps, indeed, ideas flowing from yet older traditions have returned in a modern guise to displace Descartes' geometrising iatrohydraulics. In sum it is concluded that a residual Cartesianism, far from representing the paradigm within which modern neuroscience operates, may in fact impede a proper understanding of brain functioning and dysfunctioning.
1. T. H. Huxley, 1874, in Collected Essays, vol.1, 1898 2. Foster, M., 1901, Lectures in the History of Physiology, p.278 3. Woodger, J.H., 1967, Biological Principles: a critical study, p.48
A. Edward Manier, University of Notre Dame, "How Does The Expression 'Emotional Thermostat' Work In 'Listening To Prozac'?
Peter Kramer's "Listening to Prozac" is a blend of case histories and current theories. The book is written for those of us worried about our timid and obsessive relatives. We are not all in a position to sort out the different theories behind Kramer's journalistic metaphors, "emotional thermostat" and "serotonin as police." Kramer makes rather extensive use of the work of C. Robert Cloninger, Donald F. Klein, Jerome Kagan, Michael McGuire and Steve Suomi, but gives little or no attention to folks like Joseph LeDoux and the other authors in Section IX, Emotion in "The cognitive neurosciences," M. Gazzaniga, ed., MIT, 1995. I will continue my work on the "invisible college of fear" by placing "Listening to Prozac" in the context of the current work on the neurobiology of temperament and emotion that it does and doesn't cite. The hope is that, along the way, we will all find out more about images of the emotional brain
V Language in Science. This topic includes studies of how biologists use narratives, metaphors/analogies tropes, proverbs, and other modes of linguistic organization. Various approaches to the analysis of literary and conversational discourse would be appropriate. A few examples: narratives of action and behavior in natural history; literary metaphor in molecular biology; maxims and proverbs in biologistsí discourse; and the intersection of legal and scientific discourse in expert testimony. Organizer: Michael Lynch (
Christine Hine and Michael Lynch, Brunel University, "Bionet Newsgroups: A Hybrid of Formal Protocols and Tacit Knowledge"
This is a study of messages exchanged by participants in a "bionet" newsgroup. This is a methods newsgroup in which participants discuss laboratory problems and exchange technical solutions. Topics of e-mail exchanges tend to be highly specific: "DNA Mass Ladder problems," "Reasons for PCR failure," "PKC assay in Hela cells" and "Size markers for sequencing gel." Newsgroup exchanges are a hybrid form of communication which is intermediate between situated "hands-on" instruction and formal protocols. Ethnographic studies of scientific practices often discuss a gap between formal accounts of method and the tacit knowledge at the bench. Like formal protocols, newsgroup exchanges are written, and they tend to address recurrent problems and solutions, but like hands-on lab work, newsgroup exchanges are highly specific. They provide a site in which tacit knowledge is made more explicit than in other forms of written communication. In this study we examine some of the linguistic conventions, sequential organization, and pragmatic uses of these methods exchanges.
Steven J. Fifield, University of MinnesotañTwin Cities, "A Case Study of the Rhetorical Construction of Biology in an Introductory Undergraduate Course"
Studies of scientific discourse focus on several contexts including laboratories, research articles, grant proposals and popularizations of science. However, we have paid little attention to scientistsí discourse as undergraduate science instructors. This paper is a study of a biochemist who teaches an introductory biology course at a large university in the U.S. I analyze his lectures as rhetorical constructions of biology meant to persuade students of particular accounts of biological knowledge. My analysis also draws on interviews with the participant concerning his views of teaching, learning and the nature of biological knowledge. In the lectures, biology is presented as a hierarchical collection of definitions and rules. The instructor assembles a ìbig pictureî by demonstrating how these pieces of biology fit together. The plausibility of this account of biological knowledge derives primarily from its internal coherence. Illustrations accompanying the lectures serve as grounds for presuming the reality of the physical and biological objects and processes pictured. The instructorís argumentation rarely includes appeals to experimental evidence or to procedures by which scientific knowledge is validated, which the instructor believes would add little to the coherence of his story. This case study suggests that scientists may construct accounts of scientific knowledge in response to the particular interpretative challenges they associate with undergraduate teaching. Scientistsí practices as teachers are therefore relevant to understanding the context-dependent nature of scientific discourse and knowledge construction.
Eileen Crist, Cornell University, (email:
This paper examines the language of sociobiology. The aim is to understand the argumentative means that underlie the sociobiological portrayal of animals. The focus is on two conceptual facets of sociobiology: the use of an economic idiom as the main representational means of animal life; and the application of social-category concepts to animal relations and interactions. The application of an economic language is analyzed in terms of sociobiological mobility across technical and ordinary semantic domains. The use of ostensibly human social-category terms is addressed in terms of the problematic of "anthropomorphic" language in behavioral science. Overall, it is argued that the case of sociobiology demonstrates how the artful use of language contributes to empowering scientific argumentation.
VI Normative Issues in Genetics Organizer: David Magnus
In these sessions we will explore some of the key conceptual and causal notions associated with genetics and their normative implications. What is a genetic disease? What is the significance of applying that label? How has past usage of genetic concepts influenced medical practice, and what lessons does that hold for us today? One session will focus on the lessons to be learned from the past, while the other will focus more on the implications of recent work on causality and DNA.
Chair: Suzanne Holland, University of Puget Sound
Session One.
Diane Paul, University of Mass. at Boston , "Informed Consent and Newborn Screening"
In the last thirty years, the principle of informed consent has become fundamental to medicine. For a number of reasons, it has acquired its greatest authority in the realm of medical genetics, where the need for informed consent is enshrined in the policy statements of numerous organizations and even federal law. An Institute of Medicine committee recently reiterated the doctrine, recommending that no genetic test be performed "without the con- sent of the persons being tested or, in the case of newborns, the consent of their parents." Yet in respect to newborn screening, the principle has little practical force; in practice, testing is almost always mandatory. Of course gaps between theory and practice exists in many spheres of medicine. But its extent in respect to newborn screening reflects an unusually strong sentiment among health-care providers that informed consent here is inappropriate. That sentiment was recently expressed by a committee of the American College of Medical Genetics, which criticized the Institute of Medicine committee for insisting on the principle of voluntariness. In its view, requiring fully- informed consent for disorders such as PKU or hypothyroidism might seriously reduce the benefits from these programs and would greatly increase their costs. An earlier (and stronger) argument against consent requirements was based on the distinction between personal and parental autonomy. This talk explores the history of the controversy over informed consent in newborn screening and seeks to evaluate the arguments against it.
Glenn McGee, University of Pennsylvania, "The History of Eugenics and Contemporary Reproductive Medicine"
Contemporary discussion of genetics and public health raises again the spectre of eugenics. It is argued in my paper that it is possible to monitor and to some extent regulate genetic inheritance at a public health level without moving into eugenics, provided there are very clear distinctions made about the purposes and politics of public health efforts in genetic testing of adults and fetuses. An attempt is made to describe an appropriate form such distinctions might take in public health policy.
Kathy Cooke and David Valone, Quinnipiac College, "Nature and Nurture in Eugenics Past and Present"
In this paper I consider the role that concerns about environment played in American eugenics. Before about 1915 the typical American eugenicist considered environment as well as biological transfer of traits in their efforts to breed better Americans. I will sketch the history of eugenics as it came to be considered a more strictly hereditarian approach to breeding human beings, considering especially the changing editorship of the Journal of Heredity, and draw implications regarding the fears about eugenics today.
Thursday, July 17, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
VII Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Two: Teleology
Karen Neander, John Hopkins, "Teleosemantics and Adaptationism"
Fodor has argued that the natural teleology that underwrites Teleosemantics requires Adaptationism, which, as he defines it, is a dubious thesis at best. He further argues that we have no good reason to believe that adaptational explanations will even be important in explaining cognition. This paper replies to these objections. It explains why neither natural teleology nor Teleosemantics involves a commitment to Adaptationism, and why we do have a powerful reason to believe that adaptational explanations will be essential to explaining the evolution of cognition. This involves the "Argument for Selection," which is to the effect that cognition is the product of organized complexity and organized complexity requires an adaptational explanation.
Denis Walsh, Edinburgh, "The Dormitive Virtues of Teleological Explanation"
I will outline the general form of teleological explanations and argue that what distinguishes teleological explanations is their logical form and not the fact that they explain a feature's etiology. In the light of this, I will then discuss certain oddities of teleological explanations such as adaptational explanations, propositional attitude explanations. Finally, I will discuss how the latter reflects on the causal role of content.
VIII Evolution as an (In-)Deterministic Process, Organizer: Timothy Shanahan Loyola Marymount University (email:
In a number of recent works philosophers of biology have crossed swords on the issue of whether evolutionary theory is an essentially statistical theory. Alexander Rosenberg (1994) and Barbara Horan (1994) have argued that while our best theory of evolution is likely to remain statistical, the actual process of evolution should be understood as a deterministic process. Robert Brandon and Scott Carson (1996), and Roberta Millstein (1996), on the other hand, maintain that both evolutionary theory and at least some of the processes it describes must be understood statistically. This debate raises a number of important issues concerning evolutionary biology: (1) Is evolutionary theory essentially a statistical theory? (2) Does the statistical nature of canonical formulations of evolutionary theory entail that evolutionary processes are themselves indeterministic? (3) Is there a source of indeterminism in evolution that is independent of any indeterminism introduced by the nature of fundamental physical processes? (4) Do the concepts of "fitness" and "drift" render evolutionary theory necessarily statistical? (5) What role might thought-experiments play in answering these questions? (6) What bearing, if any, does the issue of the statistical nature of evolutionary theory have on the ongoing realism/antirealism debate in the philosophy of science? The purpose of this symposium is: (1) to bring together some of the participants in this debate; (2) to summarize the arguments deployed on each side; (3) to identify points of agreement; (4) to isolate key issues that still divide participants; (5) to see how far these differences can be bridged; and (6) to assess the prospects for an eventual consensus on these issues.
Session Two:
Leslie Graves, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Barbara L. Horan, Georgia Southern University; and Alexander Rosenberg, University of Georgia, "Is Indeterminism the Source of the Statistical Character of Evolutionary Theory?"
We argue that Brandon and Carson's (1996) "The Indeterminate [sic] Character of Evolutionary Theory" fails to trace the probabilism of evolutionary theory to any indeterminism that might substantiate the postulation of ineliminable probabilistic propensities at the level of biological processes. We argue that their appeal to Bell's or perhaps von Neumann's no-hidden variable proofs is irrelevant and defective; that their arguments to the inevitability of drift mistake calculation artifacts for theoretical predictions; and that their interpretation of experiments in botany abdicates the responsibility of the experimental scientist to search for causes. We remain convinced that the probabilism of the theory of evolution is epistemic.
Timothy Shanahan, Loyola Marymount University, "Fitness, Drift, and the Omniscient Viewpoint"
By way of an analysis of the recent debate between Rosenberg and Horan, on the one hand, and Brandon/Carson and Millstein, I attempt to show how the interpretation of evolution as an essentially indeterministic process rests on two mistaken "dogmas" of evolutionary theory concerning the concepts of "fitness" and "drift". With Rosenberg and Horan, I argue that while any evolutionary theory that will be useful for beings with cognitive abilities similar to our own will employ statistical concepts, there are no good reasons to maintain that the evolutionary process is itself "autonomously indeterministic". A being with complete information about the evolutionary process and unlimited computational powers would have no need of the statistical concepts that appear in our current evolutionary theory. With Brandon/Carson, and Millstein, however, I agree that our best theory of evolution is likely to remain statistical. I conclude by assessing the significance of this fact for the issue of realism and instrumentalism in evolutionary biology.
Commentator: Robert Brandon, Duke University
IX Teaching Darwin and Darwinism. The principal objective of the symposium is to share resources, experiences, and techniques in exploring Darwin the scientist, Darwin the thinker, Darwin and Darwinism in its Victorian context, and Darwin and Darwinism today. Interdisciplinary approaches and innovative teaching methods would be the focus of attention. Organizers: David Blitz (
Session Two:
3. Prof. David Blitz, Department of Philosophy, Central Connecticut
State University, New Britain, Connecticut 06050, "Developing a Darwin web-site."
Demonstration of a fully-functioning web-site with searchable hypertext editions (including original pagination and illustrations) of Darwin's main evolutionary works, including Origin of Species (1st and 6th editions), Descent of Man, and Expression of Emotions, as well as two non-Darwinian 19th century theories of evolution (for comparison/contrast): Lamarck's Philosophical Zoology and Minaret's Genesis of Species. Discussion will include: setting up the site for use by both scholars and students, establishing hypertext linking of related passages, searching by key work, and developing a multi-volume table of contents and concept index.
4. Prof. Charles Blinderman, Department of English, Clark University,
Worcester, MA. 0610, "Natural and Unnatural Selection: Anthology of Darwinian
Literature"
The pandemic ignorance about Darwinism appears throughout the cultural strata. Cuomo installs Charles Darwin in a terrible trio (Stalin and Hitler the other criminals) for engendering the plague of Social Darwinism. It is a rare bird in the classroom, the lab, of the physician's office who can identify Lamarkianism; T. H. Huxley; the year (or the century) of publication of the Origin of Species; the ideological monkeying around in Dayton, Tennessee; the credenza of creationism, a list that could go on till doomsday. A Natural Selection; Anthology of Darwinian Literature, surveys the territory to effect a comprehensive view of the pre-Darwinian terrain, the peaks of which range from John Ray's wisdom of god to Philip Gosse's wisdom of the belly-button. It then moves on to the Victorian landscape, scrutinizing Spencer, Darwin, Kingsley, and, especially, Thomas Henry Huxley, who, along with Punch and W. S. Gilbert are there to entertain as well as inform. We survey memorial poets such as Tennyson, protoplasmic flambeaux such as Pater, the volcanic Tyndall, the shady Stevenson, Thomas Hardy, Jack London, and Stephen Crane.
X Sessions On Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Production In The Life Sciences. Organizer: Marilia Coutinho (Universidade de Sao Paulo;
Session One: Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Construction In The Life Sciences ñ Theoretical Issues
Carlos Lopez Beltran (UNAM ñ Mexico), "Epistemological And Ethical Issues In The Core-Periphery Debate In The History And Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge"
This paper focuses on the trend within SKK community of characterizing decision making and theory choice in science, in parallel with the adoption of technologies, as the consequence of power structures. Recapitulating briefly the history of historiographical and sociological models for describing the relationships between Central and Peripheral Scientific communities (Ben-David, Basalla, Polanco) it concludes that the role of justifying asymmetries that was in former times ascribed to the spheres of epistemology and ethics have in recent years been fully taken on and vindicated by sociological, power-based, models. The actor-network model that Xavier Polanco uses in his account of World-Science describes no-way-out situation for weak and peripheral communities. My conclusion is that both ethical and epistemological (normative) considerations should be reintroduced in order for our role not only as ìscientists of scienceî but also as ìscience criticsî to be fulfilled. A parallel is drawn with feminist criticism of science, where both epistemic (objectivity) and ethical values must play a role in order to justify a transition towards equitably leveled field of dispute.
Enrique Martinez Larrechea, IVIC ñ Venezuela, "Dynamic Dimensions Of Theoretical Approaches In The Concept Of Peripheral Science"
The social organization of science has been frequently considered under approaches that lacked the necessary historical concern. Its conception of science as an institution which is identical to itself, with only one known historical route of institutional construction, made it prisoner to an externalist framework. The idea of ìperipheral scienceî emerges as a relational notion. Instead of describing an obvious eccentric nature of science as practiced in those countries excluded from the benefits of plain development, it focuses in the fact that such a ìperipheralî science belongs to an universal and internalized scientific matrix. According to unique phenomena, developments and articulations of institutional, disciplinary and cognitive nature, it is able to make decisive contributions. In this paper I will attempt to examine those dimensions within the efforts being made towards the construction of an Iberoamerican sociology of science.
Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Tathiana B. Alcantara and Marilia Coutinho, Universidade de Sao Paulo, "Trends In The Internationalization Of Scientific Activities In Globalized Economies ñ Examples From The Life Sciences In Brazil"
The two basic development strategy patterns displayed by third world countries ñ the protectionist import-substitution approach that insulated national scientific, technological and industrial systems from international competition and the opposite strategy of differential exploration of the international market ñ have resulted in important differences as to the structures of both Sci. & Tech. establishments and higher education systems. The internalization of development requirements and bases has produced a self-referent attitude where quality is not a determinant factor either in internal decisions or in the allocation of financial resources. It has also produced a scientific establishment highly concentrated in academic environments, with little connections or pressure from the industrial sector. During the nineties, where development strategies based on the protectionist import-substitution approach have generally failed, a serious crisis has been taking place in the sci.,tech.&HE structures it has engendered. Reactions towards the crisis are analyzed in a comparison of certain life science research endeavors in Brazil (Ecology, Zoology and Biotechnology).
XI Science & Society
Rivers Singleton, Jr., Case Western Reserve University, University of Delaware (email:
Lines of research inquiry that individual scientists pursue can have profound consequences for their careers, their institutions, and the broader disciplines within which they operate. Despite these far reaching consequences, however, the forces that lead a person to pursue one research line rather than another are as complex as the individual scientists personality. In this paper, I will explore the career of Chester Werkman, in the bacteriology department at Iowa State, as a case study to illustrate both the complexity of decisions about research programs, as well as the personal, institutional, and disciplinary consequences of those decisions.
Werkmanís career, during the 1930's, is an excellent case to explore these issues as well as intellectual connections between bacteriology and biochemistry. His laboratory trained several preeminent biochemists, in addition to many distinguished microbiologists. Three of his students, Lesser Krampitz, Merton Utter, and Harland Wood, as well as Werkman himself, were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and they all made significant contributions to biochemistry, especially in intermediary metabolism. Werkman, however, did not begin his career as a biochemist; rather he was a traditional bacteriologist pursuing relatively uninteresting immunological research. His research program became more biochemical after the Dutch microbiologist/biochemist, A. J. Kluyver visited Iowa State during the spring and summer of 1932. Kluyver was a visiting professor of chemistry and bacteriology and delivered an extensive series of biochemical lectures on microbial metabolism. In the years following Kluyverís lectures, Werkmanís research program changed radically from pursuit of trivial bacteriology to an innovative biochemical inquiry into microbial metabolism. It was an extremely productive research program, and less than a decade after Kluyverís visit his laboratory was one of the foremost facilities for intermediary metabolism research in the country.
Lauro Galzigna, Department of Biochemistry, University of Padua, Italy
My experience as basic researcher first and applied researcher later was in the field of new synthetic molecules of medical interest. In some case I also considered problems of biodegradation and bioconversion of xenobiotics generated by the industry. To an University researcher, often motivated by sheer curiosity alone, industrial logic is generally obscure and often incomprehensible. Although the interested people claim the opposite, the string behind industrial research is the marketing, while that behind academic research may be, in addition to curiosity, the intellectual fashion of the time. In the field of the molecules of medical relevance, there are two obligatory strategies, either from the molecule to the market, or from the market to the molecule. The relationship between academic and industrial research has been considered in the past(see Nature 352, July-August 1991) and it appeared that about 25% of the pharmaceutical products on the market are the result of academic research, while investing in the latter yields a mean annual return of 28%, i.e. it is a good investment. A comparison between academic and industrial researchers reveals some differences, despite basically similar capabilities of the two and not too different activities in their respective working places. The problem is whether or not those differences are sufficient to indicate a true separation of the two worlds.
XII Normative Issues in Genetics Organizer: David Magnus
In these sessions we will explore some of the key conceptual and causal notions associated with genetics and their normative implications. What is a genetic disease? What is the significance of applying that label? How has past usage of genetic concepts influenced medical practice, and what lessons does that hold for us today? One session will focus on the lessons to be learned from the past, while the other will focus more on the implications of recent work on causality and DNA.
Chair: Suzanne Holland, University of Puget Sound
Session Two.
Cor Van der Weele, "DNA And Disease: Where Is Control Located?"
Within the picture that DNA controls who we are, genetics offers the ultimate diagnosis of disease; "there is nothing better". Given the complicated interactions in the development of most diseases, this picture selectively highlights genes; apart from that it also involves particular assumptions about control. When these diagnoses are offered to people in the form of genetic tests and thus enter the context of social life, the complexities of social life as well as those of disease development are relevant. Science offers this knowledge under the assumption that for individuals to know more is to make more responsible choices and to have more personal control. However, the choices offered by genetics are not enthusiastically welcomed by everyone and many people doubt whether knowing more is always to be preferred. Are they declining control? Or is personal control perhaps working on different assumptions? In my talk, I will analyze relationships between genetic control, medical control and personal control.
Robert T. Pennock, The University of Texas at Austin, "Pre-Existing Conditions: Disease Genes, Causation & The Future of Medical Insurance"
As tests that can identify genes associated with diseases proliferate faster than therapies, individuals face a problem: if they test positive for a disease gene they may find that prospective insurers say they have a "pre-existing condition" and deny them coverage on that basis. This paper explores the implications for the future of medical insurance of regarding genes in this manner, and examines some of the moral and conceptual difficulties. Looking simply at the level of causal interactions there is no reason to say that "the cause" of a disease is "genetic" and not "environmental." Thus, in a trivial sense, every disease may be said to have a pre-existing genetic component. I describe the CaSE model of the causal relation and show how it can help us understand the way tacit pragmatic assumptions are involved when we call something a "genetic disease." This lets us see where our moral choices lie. I propose that pre-existing conditions are not all equivalent from a moral point of view, and then, using a Rawlsian framework, argue that it would be unjust to deny access to insurance on the basis of genetic pre-conditions that are the result of life's lottery.
Thursday, July 17, 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
XIII Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Three: Evolutionary Psychology
David Buller, Northern Illinois University, "DeFreuding Evolutionary Psychology"
Evolutionary psychologists sometimes suggest that "an evolutionary view of life can shed light on psyche" by revealing the "latent" psychology that underlies our "manifest" psychological image. At such moments, which are more frequent in popular works, explanations trade freely in subconscious motives whose goal is inclusive fitness. While some evolutionary psychologists explicitly deny that their aim is to uncover latent motivation, references to subconscious motives are nonetheless frequent in evolutionary psychology (and are even made by those explicitly denying postulation of subconscious motives). These explanatory references to subconscious motives pose a dilemma. On the one hand, if they are literal, evolutionary psychology is vulnerable to a criticism frequently leveled against sociobiology: if subconscious motives toward inclusive fitness are the true determinants of human behavior, our behavior should more closely approximate full satisfaction of those motives (i.e. increased fitness) than it does. On the other hand, if references to subconscious motives are merely figurative -- like talk of "selfish" genes -- it must be explained how they are to be literally interpreted. Either way it is necessary to deFreud evolutionary psychology. I will thus provide an account of evolutionary psychological explanation, and how it functions, when purged of reference to subconscious motives.
Lawrence Shapiro, University of Wisconsin, "The Presence of Mind."
Recent years have seen a growing movement to wed evolutionary theory to cognitive psychology, and among the matchmakers pushing for this marriage Cosmides and Tooby have been especially outspoken. While I am strongly in favor of bringing evolutionary considerations to bear on questions in cognitive psychology, I offer a more tempered view of how evolutionary theory is likely to change current practice in cognitive psychology. In particular, I resist Cosmides and Tooby's claim that evolutionary theory will reveal all adaptive behavior to be the product of specially dedicated cognitive modules. I conclude with a discussion of the proper place for evolutionary theory in cognitive psychology. It is my hope that a more selective view of the impact evolutionary theory will have on cognitive psychology will ease the union of the two fields, providing evolutionary psychology with a future free of unnecessary encumbrances.
Todd Grantham & Shaun Nichols, College of Charlestown, "Evolutionary Psychology: Ultimate Explanations and Panglossian Predictions"
Evolutionary psychologists maintain that the human mind is a set of cognitive mechanisms that are adaptations to the environment of the Pleistocene. This general evolutionary framework has led Cosmides, Tooby and other evolutionary psychologists to suggest two distinct projects. One project offers ultimate explanations of the mechanisms uncovered by cognitive science; the other project uses evolutionary biology to predict the existence of unexpected cognitive mechanisms. We maintain that while evolutionary psychologists have compelling arguments to support the explanatory project, the arguments for the predictive project fall back into Panglossian adaptationism. Evolutionary psychologists appeal to the complexity of cognitive traits to protect the explanatory project from traditional criticisms of Panglossianism. We elaborate the complexity argument and maintain that while the argument is persuasive, it has a rather limited range given current knowledge in cognitive science. We argue that Cosmides and Tooby's defense of the predictive project, on the other hand, overestimates the precision of evolutionary predictions and underestimates the precision of description already available to us.
XIV Animal Issues: Studies Into Animals, Animal Sciences And Philosophy Of Animals. The goal is to create some continuity between the lectures, participants and discussions of these sessions. Possible issues of these sessions can be: history of animal sciences, animal subjectivity, animal ethics, animal politics, cultural views on animals, and human-animal relationships. Organizers: Chip Burkhardt (
Session One: Animals in Paris
Louise E. Robbins, University of Wisconsin, "Zebras in Paris."
Eighteenth-century Parisians were fascinated with exotic animals. They ogled them at street fairs and the King's menageries at Versailles, read books about them, and kept monkeys and parrots as pets. Zebras were a particular favorite, and many people hoped that they could not only be imported to France and bred, but that eventually they would make elegant carriage horses. This paper is about the considerable effort that Louis XVI and his ministers undertook to obtain zebras from Africa for the King's menagerie. The tale of how and why the French acquired (or failed to acquire) zebras, and of what happened to them after they arrived in France illuminates a number of themes concerning the meanings of exotic animals in Enlightenment France. Zebras epitomized beauty and elegance as well as being a symbol of colonial power. Above all, however, they were raw material for domestication. Their recalcitrance at submitting to this process aroused a variety of responses, from respect to annoyance, that reflected prevailing attitudes toward the process of civilization.
Philippe Chavot, "The Paris Zoological Park And The Management Of A Colonial Fauna."
The Paris zoological garden was founded in 1934 as part of the Museum of Natural History. Amazingly enough, is was established close to the zoo of the 1931 Colonial Exposition. The story of these two zoos is instructive. The professors of the Museum had refused to leave the initiative of creating a modern zoological park to outsiders. Consequently, "La Coloniale" could only be a temporary installation. Despite its restricted scale, this zoological park attracted a large popular audience. When the colonial exhibition ended, the director of the zoo of "La Coloniale", Henry Th_tard, proposed to establish a permanent zoological park. A counter-project was soon promoted by the Museum. The Museum's project was finally chosen by the Ville de Paris on the basis of financial considerations.
I examine in this paper the different steps of the negotiations that led to the establishment of the Paris zoological park. I then analyze the rationale of Th_tard's and of the Museum's proposals. Although both projects relied on Hagenbeck's model, the aims they pursued were quite different, particularly in their visions of how a zoo should deal with entertainment, education and conservation. Nonetheless, both projects reflected a radical change in the way a colonial country such as France had to care for the resources constituted by the colonial fauna.
Richard Burkhardt, University of Illinois, "Unpacking Baudin: Animal Specimens And Competing Modes Of Scientific Practice In Early 19th Century French Zoology."
In March 1804, the French ship le G_ographe returned to France after a three and a half year voyage of geographic and scientific discovery to Australia. The Ship was loaded not only with crates of specimens, but also with living animals, including kangaroos and cassowaries from Australia and monkeys and a zebra from the Cape of Good Hope. The handling of the specimens brought back to France by this expedition (the Baudin expedition), highlights the issue of material practices in French zoology at the beginning of the 19th century. This paper focuses on issues regarding the control of the live and dead specimens from the time of their unloading in Port l'Orient, through their transport to Paris and their distribution to different collections, to their eventual deployment by different scientists in making their respective claims of scientific authority. It compares the work of three zoologists for whom the specimens were crucial: Francois Perob, J.-B. Lamarck, and F. Cuvier, who represented three respective (and in some measure, competing) modes of scientific practice: those of (1) naturalist-voyager; (2) cabinet naturalist; and (3) observer of live animals in captivity.
XV Sessions On Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Production In The Life Sciences. Organizer: Marilia Coutinho (Universidade de Sao Paulo;
Session Two: Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Construction In The Life Sciences ñ Case Studies In The Development Of Scientific Specialties
Adriana Chiancone, IVIC ñ Venezuela, "Laboratories In Latin America: The Case Of Immunology In Venezuela"
Several different immunology research laboratories in Venezuela were comparatively studied as to the strategies adopted by scientists to achieve the establishment of their scientific practices. In each one, the specific features of the research activities were analyzed in search of common components that might relate to those strategies, both individually ñ in terms of career choices and moves ñ and collectively, as to the mechanisms underlying social organization. The studies cases seem to reveal factors at play in the struggle for the constitution of scientific endeavors in Latin America as a whole.
Marilia Coutinho, Universidade de Sao Paulo ñ Brazil, "The Emergence Of Ecology And Environmental Studies In Brazil "
Ecology has become a prominent scientific discipline or at least a primary source of problems, theoretical frameworks or orientation in recent years. Much of this has to do with the environmental issue having become an all-encompassing mandatory problem, a set of general questions integrating an unavoidable agenda. Ecologists have, undoubtedly, played a role in this process and in the sites where Ecology has been a traditional well-established discipline, it has gained priority in the establishment of environmental studies. Nevertheless, Ecology as a scientific discipline is certainly an Anglo-American tradition. This paper will present the first outcomes of a research about the institutionalization of Ecology and of the environmental theme in a scientifically non-traditional country ñ Brazil. I will try to show that the emergence of Ecology as a distinct scientific practice in Brazil has followed major international trends as well as a favorable local environment, but that it has been largely short-circuited by the trans-disciplinary, context-driven environmental research trends.
Ana Lilia Gaona and Ana Barahona, National University of Mexico, "The Introduction Of Genetics In Mexico"
Experimental genetics was introduced in Mexico through the agricultural research programs in the 1930s and 1940s with official economic support. The Oficina de Estudios Experimentales (Special Studies Office) was established in 1944 by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government. This office centered its research in the genetic improvement of important economic species such as maize. This office had a relative success and joined in the 1960s the Oficina de Campos Experimentales (Experimental Fields Office) founded in the late 1930s, run by Edmundo Taboada, the first Mexican agricultural expert who had the opportunity to make graduate studies at Cornell University in 1932 and 1933 in plant breeding genetics. The new Instituto de Investigaciones Agricolas (Agricultural Research Institute) was run by Edmundo Taboada and during the 1960s directed the research programs in experimental plant genetics in Mexico.
Lea Velho, DPCT/IG/UNICAMP, "The Role Of American Scientists In The Emergence, Development And Shaping Of Botany And Zoology In Brazil"
This paper investigates the reasons why Botany and Zoology have not reached the state of development achieved by other scientific disciplines in Brazil. It explores the hypothesis that foreign naturalists who collected biological material or carried out research in Brazil, with few exceptions, were not able to form disciples and create traditions of research work as it was typical in other scientific disciplines. For doing so, the paper looks at the role played by foreign scientists in the emergence, development and shaping of Botany and Zoology in Brazil according to the following features: a) it covers the period from the beginning of this century up to the present, in an attempt to identify the changing nature of the relationship between foreign and local scientists and under the assumption that such relationship became more and not less important as the local scientific community was growing in number and capability; b) it looks only at the relations with American researchers given that in this century European influence in Latin America started to be replaced by the US; c) it is concerned not only with formal and institutional links established between American and Brazilian scientists but also with individual and informal contacts. The latter have been often overlooked although it is known that they can be quite influential in shaping directions of research as well as attitudes and working habits.
Maria Jesus Santesmases, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, "The Establishment Of Molecular Biology In Spain"
The establishment of molecular biology in Spain is a useful case study to show how knowledge and values were transferred from the core of the development of the discipline in the sixties to the periphery. During those years, Spanish academia experimented a influential development in modern biology: biochemistry, and cell and molecular biology. The case of molecular biology was taken place during a decade of deep changes in science policy and values in the Spanish scientific community. New knowledge was being introduced by young scientist who had been trained abroad, mostly in the United States. Both their training and the influence of the Nobel Prize awardee Severo Ochoa played a role in the process, during which a new research center was planned in Madrid, that was finally opened in 1975.
XVI Adaptation and Selection
Session One:
Dominic Lewin, University of Leeds (email:
The debate over the evolutionary significance of adaptive modifications to the phenotype is discussed apropos the role of embryology and development within the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. One focus of this dispute was Lloyd Morgan's and Baldwin's notion of organic selection. Huxley described the principle of organic selections as a "minor mode of subsidiary historical restriction" upon natural selection, yet nonetheless "an important one which would appear to have been unduly neglected by recent evolutionists" (1942). G. G. Simpson believed there existed "singularly little concrete ground for the view that it is a frequent and important element in adaptation" (1953). Simpson was concerned that claims that the "Baldwin effect" is usual in adaptive evolution, "could be taken as an argument in favour of Neo-Lamarckism", and favoured the "broader principles" of Schmalhausen's stabilising selection, and Waddington's canalising selection. Dobzhansky is known to have discriminated against Waddington's ideas in favour of Schmalhausen's, and later described Waddington as a "frustrated Lamarckian" (1970). Focusing particularly on Schmalhausen, I discuss whether or not stabilising and canalising selection incorporated Simpson's Baldwin effect within "broader conceptions" conformable to the Modern Synthesis, or whether these notions were in fact antagonistic to Neo-Darwinism.
Michael Bradie, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, "Dennett's Algorithmic Darwin"
Darwin's dangerous idea is that the apparent design in the Universe that so impressed thinkers from Aristotle to Paley can be explained as a result of an „algorithmic process" of evolution by natural selection. Dennett sees at least three dangerous consequences emerging: [1] it reconceptualizes the biological domain in a striking manner that threatens the very distinction between the „natural and the „artificial‰; [2] it undermines the applicability of a standard model of explanation to the domain of evolutionary phenomena; [3] it threatens to invade and undermine the cultural castles that human beings have constructed to distance themselves from the natural. I argue that Dennett‚s analysis is an exemplification of the process of explaining via metaphorical redescription. Along the way, the particular core metaphor Dennett employs reconceptualizes the very idea of what a proper evolutionary explanation looks like.
XVII The Organism in History, Philosophy, and Biology, Chair: Ron Amundson, University of Hawaii at Hilo. Session organizer: Manfred D. Laubichler, Princeton University, (
Historically, organisms have been the central focus of natural history. They have been collected, hunted, stuffed, pressed, dissected, classified, measured, observed, and manipulated. During the last century a shift occurred towards a more universal biology first in the form of cell biology and biochemistry, later as molecular biology. As a consequence "the organism" began to disappear from much of the biological discourse.
Recently, "the organism" has been on the rebound. Programs of "organismal biology" have been created at many institutions and questions of biodiversity and conservation biology brought organisms back as part of the popular image of biology. There is, however, a discrepancy between the recently acquired popularity of organism and the role the organism concept plays in biological theory.
This session focuses on the "organism" as a central issue for (i) biological theory, (ii) historical investigation, and (iii) philosophical reflection. The papers will deal with the role of the organism concept in the theoretical foundations of biology, the role of organisms in shaping the history of biology, and the philosophical consequences of organism based theories.
Abstracts of Papers:
Robert N. Brandon, Duke University, "Using Organisms To Answer Our Questions vs. Letting Organisms Pose Our Questions,"
In this talk I will contrast two modes of work in biology. In the first biologists pose a question, and a tentative answer, within the context of biological theorizing, and then select the appropriate organism in order to test this proposed answer. Organisms, or more generally, biological phenomena, play a vital role as a check on biological theorizing, but play only this role in this conception of biology. In contrast, there is a mode of doing biology in which one allows the organisms to pose questions for biological research. The first mode corresponds (though imperfectly) to, on the one hand, hypothetico-deductivism and on the other a categorization of biologists in terms of fields that transcend specific specific groups of organisms (e.g., developmental biologist, evolutionary biologist). The second mode corresponds (again, imperfectly) to inductivism and a categorization of biologists in terms of organismic groups (e.g., lepidopterist, bryologist). There are tendencies in current philosophy of science to glorify the first way of doing biology at the expense of the second. I will argue that these tendencies lead to an impoverished view of biology and should be resisted.
Gerry Geison, Princeton University; and Manfred D. Laubichler, Princeton University and Yale University, "Organisms in Context"
Much attention has been paid of late to the question of "the right tools for the job." Such studies have focused, however, on the development of particular experimental techniques and the construction of presumably "stable" model organisms or experimental systems. Far less attention has been paid to another side of the story: The variability or organisms involved in such experiments. Here we offer evidence that the variability of organisms, sometimes even within the same species, had a decisive effect on the course of science and raise further issues about the replicability problem in experimental work.
We will focus on two episodes, one from physiology (the problem of the heartbeat) and the other from genetics (the early development of genetics), and will situate both episodes within the context of the question of national styles in science. In both cases, we will investigate how national differences in the response to Darwinian theory were linked to the adoption of different theoretical positions and to the choice of particular research organisms.
Manfred D. Laubichler, Princeton University and Yale University; and Gunter P. Wagner, Yale University, "Is There an Organism in this Room?"
One of the ironies of late 20th century biology is that a small but growing number of biologist continues to insist that there is an organism in biological theories. In their stubbornness they resemble Wittgenstein who could also not be convinced that there is no Rhinoceros in the room. Not unlike that (in)famous precedent, the clues on how to resolve this problem can be found in the logical structure of the question.
Here, we will ask what role the organism concept plays in the theoretical structure of biology. We will identify the kind of biological questions that revolve around the organism and how an appropriate organism concept would look like. We will argue that the exact meaning of the organism concept can only be defined within a specific biological context. The organism concept is thus the focus of different theoretical questions. We will demonstrate how in each case the appropriate notion of the organism can be derived out of the logical structure of the theory that represents the specific biological process in question. Finally, we will suggest a theoretical structure that allows to integrate the different representations of the organism concept. We will argue that such a structure can be part of the conceptual foundation of "organismal biology."
XVIII Normative Issues in Genetics Organizer: David Magnus
In these sessions we will explore some of the key conceptual and causal notions associated with genetics and their normative implications. What is a genetic disease? What is the significance of applying that label? How has past usage of genetic concepts influenced medical practice, and what lessons does that hold for us today? One session will focus on the lessons to be learned from the past, while the other will focus more on the implications of recent work on causality and DNA.
Chair: Suzanne Holland, University of Puget Sound
Session Three.
Kelly C. Smith The College of NJ , "The Concept Of A Genetic Disease"
The concept of disease in general, and genetic disease in particular, has received relatively little attention in the philosophical literature despite its daily use in both the lay and professional press. In this paper, I want to examine some of the classic views on disease and related concepts with an eye towards assessing their adequacy in the context of present day knowledge. These concepts include deviation from normality, causal selection in complex systems, precipitating factor analysis, susceptibility, manipulability and epidemiological/statistical modeling. I conclude that many of these concepts are inappropriate or misleading when applied to what are currently described as genetic diseases.
David Magnus , "The Concept of Genetic Disease"
It is a truism that both genes and environment play a causal role in the expression of any trait. The decision to classify a disease as "genetic" has changed over time, and the concept is currently expanding due to several factors (gene therapy, increased understanding of the role of genes in non-inherited diseases). At the same time, new information about the genetic basis of the paradigm "genetic diseases" (Huntington's, Cystic Fibrosis) calls into question the validity of the concept of genetic disease. The implications of these developments for biomedical practice will be discussed.
XIX Disciplinary Definitions
Sylvia Culp, Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, "Explaining the Stability of Molecular Biology as a Laboratory Science"
In "The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences" (1992) Ian Hacking claims that laboratory sciences not operating at the frontiers of research can have the kind of stability that leads to the cumulative establishment of scientific knowledge. He argues, however, that this stability is not due to what he labels as the "easy" explanation that science "discovers" the truth. Rather, he argues that, stable laboratory science happens when theories and laboratory procedures (for creating and measuring phenomena) evolve so that they match each other and are mutually vindicating.
In this paper I will respond to Hacking by arguing that stability within at least one laboratory science, molecular biology, need not be explained by self-vindication. As an example, I will show how knowledge about transcription (the process for converting genetic information in chromosomal DNA into a single strand of RNA) has been cumulative over the last 40 years. I will demonstrate that during this time there have been considerable changes in both theories about transcription and laboratory procedures for studying transcription. Finally, I will establish that these changes have not necessarily depended on the mutual vindication of theories and laboratory procedures.
Jill Lazenby, University of Toronto, "The Biologist's Many Selves: Social Identity Theory and Self- Categorization Theory Applied to the Biological Disciplines"
Are the biological sciences united? Or are they a fragmented collection of incommensurable specialties and sub- specialties? This tension between unity and disunity in the biological sciences is expressed at the level of the individual scientist. In different contexts, the same scientist may be a biologist, a botanist, a biophysicist, a cell biologist or a plant physiologist. Depending on the context, fellow biologists with different disciplinary categorizations may be recognised as members of the same "in-group", or seen as "out-group" members of a different discipline or specialty. Two theories in social psychology - social identity theory (SIT) and self-categorization theory (SCT) - describe these perceptions and their consequences. SIT says that group membership is a positive aspect of self-identity, and that individuals tend to favour their in-group and discriminate against the out-group. SCT investigates how strongly identities are felt, and how they are triggered. In this paper I consider biology, biological specialties, and hybrid specialties with the physical and social sciences, to be sources of identity. Depending on the context, biological scientists will feel united as "biologists", or experience cross- disciplinary tensions with practitioners of other biological sciences that are analogous to problems encountered in interdisciplinary research. I show how historical, philosophical and sociological studies of these disciplinary divisions can provide information about both their potential in-group characteristics, and about the contextual cues that trigger particular identities and the concomitant tendency to out-group discrimination. I use examples from contemporary photosynthesis research, and from interdisciplinary climate change research to illustrate the use of this model.
Thursday, July 17, 4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m.
XX Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Four: Biology Informs Psychology
Stephen Downs, Utah, "Ontogeny, Phylogeny and the Development of Science"
Some nineteenth century biologists believed that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: that an individual organism passes through stages of development that represent the adult stages of its evolutionary ancestors. Haeckel was one of the main proponents of this view, naming it the Biogenetic Law. Due to the overwhelming evidence against it, the law was rejected and has not been defended in biology since the nineteen twenties. A version of this view is held by a significant number of contemporary philosophers and historians of science and developmental psychologists who propose that children's cognitive development recapitulates cognitive development in the history of science. Closer examination reveals that few researchers on scientific development argue explicitly for recapitulation. Rather, theorists claim that the psychological investigation of children's cognitive development will lead to a better understanding of the cognitive development of science. In this paper I argue that neither the strong recapitulation view, nor its weaker derivative provide plausible accounts of scientific development. To reject the strong and weak versions of the recapitulation thesis is not, however, to reject the claim that scientific development is analogous to some kind of evolutionary process. Thomas Kuhn and many others have made this suggestion, and while agreeing with it in spirit, I will argue that it is important to stress just exactly what kind of evolutionary process is envisaged.
Mark Bedau, Reed, "Supple Ceteris Paribus Laws in Biology and Psychology"
It is well known that the (purported) laws of psychology hold only ceteris paribus, only if everything else is equal. Psychological ceteris paribus laws are controversial and contemporary opinion is divided about their source, significance, legitimacy, and nature. Analogous ceteris paribus laws govern biological phenomena. Furthermore, since biological ceteris paribus laws can be synthesized in artificial life computer models, we can study them with empirically accessible and precisely manipulable thought experiments. By comparing ceteris paribus laws in psychology with those observable in artificial life models, this paper concludes that (i) a special category of ceteris paribus laws--what I call "supple" laws--can be found in biological and psychological phenomena; (ii) the source of supple laws is the ability of biological and psychological systems to respond appropriately to an open-ended and unpredictable range of contextual contingencies; (iii) due to this source, supple ceteris paribus laws are non-computational in principle, even though they can be realized in underlying computational processes (such as artificial life models); (iv) supple ceteris paribus laws reflect a kind of "intelligence" that is central to both living and mental phenomena.
Elliot Sober, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Morgan's Canon"
In his Principles of Comparative Psychology, Lloyd Morgan stated a rule of inference that has come to be called Morgan's Canon: If a behavior can be explained by attributing to an organism a "higher" psychological faculty, and also by attributing to it a "lower" psychological faculty, the latter attribution should be preferred. Morgan tried to provide a Darwinian justification of his principle; others have thought that it is a straightforward instance of Ockham's razor. This paper assesses these various attempts to justify the canon and provides a new line of argument.
XXI Animal Issues: Studies Into Animals, Animal Sciences And Philosophy Of Animals. The goal is to create some continuity between the lectures, participants and discussions of these sessions. Possible issues of these sessions can be: history of animal sciences, animal subjectivity, animal ethics, animal politics, cultural views on animals, and human-animal relationships. Organizers: Chip Burkhardt (
Session Two: Animal Ethics
Thijs Visser, University of Leiden (the Netherlands), "Playing God And Playing Allah: Moral Considerability Of Animals In Christianity And Islam."
Both religions, Christianity and Islam, consider man "the Crown of Creation", conferring upon him domination over the other animals. In principle therefore man has a moral right to use animals for his own benefit. But there have been always set limits to his action. One of the most widespread limits is cruelty towards animals. This is considered a sin, but its appreciation depends whether it is committed intentionally or not. Another approach is the ethics of stewardship, also encountered in both religions. Nature, c.q. animals are not only to use, but also to conserve and to protect, which grant them moral considerability for their own sake. This will be illustrated by the case of genetic engineering of animals, another, very controversial limit to human enterprise. The limits here are rather concrete in the shape of species barriers, that can be transgressed by this biotechnique. It may be experienced like a violation of God's creation, hence the expression of "Playing God". In this paper I shall investigate how Islamic and Christian authors relate to this problem, with special consideration for "nature" used as moral argument, and domestication as a case in point.
Elmar Theune, Wageningen Agricultural University (the Netherlands), "Formative Experience And The Dutch Debate On Animal Biotechnology."
The Dutch public debate on animal biotechnology has been concentrating on a genetically modified bull, named Herman. The birth of this bull in 1990 caused a debate that lasted for at least five years and that resulted in a very restrictive law on animal biotechnology. In my view it has made a great difference that it was a cow, the animal that is as much the Dutch national symbol as windmills are, that was the first genetically modified animal that caught public attention and not another kind of animal. I will defend my case by referring to Michael DePaul's notion of formative experiences. DePaul argues that not only arguments have an important place in any moral inquiry, but life experiences and experiences with literature, theatre, music and art as well. Such formative experiences play a significant role in developing and improving a person's moral sensibility. This would imply that it makes a difference to a person which experience comes first, because the earlier experiences will shape his or her moral intuitions more than the later ones. A later experience that does not fit in has to really cause a change of heart. DePaul has developed his notion of formative experiences with respect to individuals. I want to extend the notion to a public, realizing that there is no such thing as a collective formative experience. Still, people share certain values and also certain experiences. And, it seems obvious that public opinion is shifting slowly from one opinion to another not only because of reasoning experiences, but also because of the shared formative experiences of its members. So, first I will show how formative experiences may play a role in public inquiry, and then I will elaborate on how concrete formative experiences have shaped the Dutch debate on animal biotechnology.
XXII Sessions On Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Production In The Life Sciences. Organizer: Marilia Coutinho (Universidade de Sao Paulo;
Session Three: Core-Periphery Relations In Scientific Knowledge Production In The Life Sciences ñ Case Studies In The Institutionalization Of Science In Peripheral Countries
Diana Obregon, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, "Cultivation Of Hansenís Bacillus: The Case Of A Latin American Scientist" By: This paper focuses on the case of a veterinarian-bacteriologist, Federico Lleras Acosta, struggling to make a scientific career in Colombia in the early 20th century. I examine the scientific and social/political reasons for Lleras choosing to culture Hansenís bacillus as his scientific research program. Starting with Hansen himself, in the late 19th century, numerous investigators attempted to grow the leprosy bacillus by many different methods. Despite claims of success by Lleras and others, scientists never accepted that the organism had been cultured. The field of bacteriology with emphasis on leprosy was very dispersed at Llerasís time: researchers in diverse institutional settings tried to solve the mysteries of M. leprae. This dispersion made difficult to find homogeneous conditions of replicability, and to fulfill the three Koch postulates. The reasons for Llerasís failure were not his own laboratory errors or his own scientific deficiencies. His lack of success was instead related to the specific nature of his research program and the institutional characteristics of his larger scientific community.
Ana Barahona and Ismael Ledesma, National University of Mexico, "Herrera And Ochoterena: Discursive And Socioprofessional Incommensurability." This paper talks about the more conspicuous aspects in the process of the institutionalization of Biology in Mexico in the 1920s and the role that Alfonso L. Herrera and Isaac Ochoterena had on it. The discursive and socioprofessional incommensurability between Herrera and Ochoterena led to the rejection of the study of evolution and the origin of life, as central to the unification of Biology. The new born community of ìdescriptive biologistsî was integrated to the medical community that had been for a long time considered as more consolidated. In 1929 Ochoterena established the Biology Institute that incorporate another official institutions established before by Herrera. The discursive and socioprofessional incommensurability between Herrera and Ochoterena defined the teaching and research Biology programs mainly in the National University of Mexico.
Pablo Kreimer, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, "Laboratory Studies: Social And Political Implications In A Peripheral Context"
The aim of this paper is to show how several dimensions of scientific practices, like decision-making mechanisms, social relationships ìin and outî of the lab, and especially collaboration-links with foreign institutions, have important consequences which exceed the boundaries of the lab itself. Therefore, the study of certain basic topics seems very useful for an adequate understanding of the dynamics of the local scientific community as well as that of certain political decisions. Based on a comparative study conducted in French, English and Argentinean labs, it is possible to analyze how a ìperipheral conditionî is expressed, even in research groups which are considered as more ìintegratedî in the context of international science. Those groups seem to stand in contrast to other relatively isolated groups in the local community. As a result of this analysis, it is possible to point out that a peripheral condition is a complex situation that can only be understood by crossing cognitive dimensions with, on the one hand, socio-political relationships and, on the other, the international context.
XXIII Adaptation and Selection
Session Two:
Arno Wouters, Department of Philosophy, Utrecht University, "Function as Survival Value"
The study of the way in which the characters of an organism contribute to their reproductive success (the study of survival value) is an important part of biology. Philosophers differ in opinion about the explanatory status of such studies. There are roughly two approaches. Proponents of the 'backward looking' approach treat alleged attributions of survival value as historical statements about (recent) past contributions to the maintenance of the trait in the population. Proponents of the 'forward looking' approach treat such attributions as statements about how a trait contributes to the survival, reproduction or fitness of the organisms that have it. I argue that the forward looking account is basically right about the meaning of attributions of survival value but fails to give a satisfactory account of their explanatory force. I suggest an alternative account in which attributions of survival are explanatory not because they are backward or forward looking but because they show how an organism fits in its environment.
William Harms, Bowling Green State University (email:
The theory of proper functions as developed by Millikan and others can be extended to give a naturalistic account of agency and agent-binding normativity, thus grounding rational and moral norms. Agents are entities that are biologically "supposed" to be equipped with and governed by particular sorts of behavioral regulatory systems. "Full-blooded" normativity attaches to signals sent and received within such systems, and is only binding on agents of the relevant kind. This can account for both the phenomenological richness of agency and the peculiar subjective character of agent-bindingness. The result is a naturalistic account of normativity that explains why naturalistic descriptions of normative systems are not normative for the systems described (and so is non-reductive), yet allows appeal to facts about the world to secure objective grounding (satisfaction-conditions) for norms. This requires a basic theory of proper functions, and so increases the stakes involved in completing such a theory.
Glenn M. Sanford, Duke University, "Evolutionary History: The Difference Between 'Adaptation' and 'Adaptive'"
Reeve and Sherman (1993) define "adaptation" ahistorically as any phenotypic variant which results in the highest fitness among a specified set of variants in a given environment. They maintain that traditional, i.e., historical, conceptions of adaptations have paid little attention to the concerns of those investigating phenotype existence; instead, focusing upon the views of those concerned with evolutionary history. Their goal is to emphasize that when dealing with issues of phenotype existence, the primary questions concern the relative fitnesses of a set of phenotypes within a particular environment, not the evolutionary history of the variants. It is my contention that by collapsing the definitions of "adaptive" and "adaptation," ahistorical definitions of "adaptation" preclude a consistent separation of the issues of evolutionary history and current phenotype existence. Reeve and Sherman's approach does not resolve the problem created by attempting to apply biology's limited vocabulary to both evolutionary history and current phenotype existence; rather, it exacerbates the problem by failing to consider the needs of both practices simultaneously. Following a discussion of standard usages of "adaptation," "adaptive," and "relative adaptedness," I argue that Reeve and Sherman's concerns can be better addressed by maintaining a consistent distinction between "adaptive" and "adaptation."
XXIV The Human Genome & Biological Determinism
Ph. Goujon, Université Catholoque de Lille, "The Secret Dreams of the Human Genome"
The human genome project has caused a great enthusiasm. In learning how to locate genes and to sequence them, scientists and the media affirm us that humans are now in possession of the tools to rectify mistakes of nature. In this conference, I want to question the assumptions that have been based on the belief that all of human existence is controlled by our DNA and its influence on the direction of biological research, in particular the Human Genome Project, which seeks to determine the complete DNA sequence that makes up human genes.
After some commentaries on the problems of Reduction and Reductionism and on the definition of the concept of gene, I show the dangers of the ideology of biological determinism and in particular of the ideology of genetic determinism which has been (and is) used to explain and justify inequality within and between society. In doing so, I'll put in evidence "the dangerous connections" of the new biology.
After adopting a reasonable skepticism towards the sweeping claims that have been made of the benefits to human kind of the modern biology, I'll put in evidence the "hidden" reasons of the ideology of what we can name the ideology of the "all genetics" (in particular, the epistemological, sociological and economic factors).
In conclusion, I'll try to demonstrate that we are in the presence of a new utopia which is taking slowly the place of the utopia of communication and which is the sign symptom of the problems which are affecting our society. In particular, this new utopia can be considered as the outcome of the lack of reference, and of the problem to build a new image of humans which, with its scientific reference seems, despite its dangers "to be capable" to respond to the existential distress of the modern man in "taking" his responsibility away more and more.
With the impact of the new biology on the new understanding that has the man of himself and with the importance of the "genocentric revolution" which is taking place now and its consequences, it's time to ask what objectives are now the real motivations behind the modern biology. I'll contemplate the possibility of a new eugenics with the elaboration, under the justification of genetics therapy, of a screening aimed at ensuring the birth of a "biologically correct child."
Lisa Gannett, University of Western Ontario (email:
The Human Genome Project has been criticized from an evolutionary perspective for the pre-Darwinian typological thinking it evidences in the expression "_the_ human genome" and its associated treatment of genetic variation as deviation from a norm, rather than as the basis for evolution. In this paper, I develop the historical thesis that the conceptual framework of human molecular genetics, rather than ignoring evolutionary considerations altogether, has incorporated a _particular_ evolutionary perspective, specifically that of H.J. Muller. This possibility receives support from the claims of Elof Axel Carlson and Evelyn Fox Keller that Muller was the key influence on the _conceptual- development of molecular biology. In assessing and developing their analyses, I focus on the concepts of a "normal" genome and the harmfulness of mutations ("genetic load"). Historical context is provided by the acrimonious classical-balance debate between Muller and Theodosius Dobzhansky and its interconnections with the drift-selectionist debate between R.A. Fisher and Sewall Wright which preceded it, and the current neutralist-selectionist debate.
XXV Biology and Gender
Maria Trumpler, Yale University (email:
There has been growing concern over the past decade both with the general loss of confidence experienced by adolescent girls (as discussed in the runaway best seller Reviving Ophelia) and the still persistent gap between the number of science and math courses taken by male and female high school students. As historians of science have devoted more attention to women scientists, this focus has also filtered down into an increasing number of biographies of women scientists aimed at the juvenile market. Among such biographies currently in print, Rachel Carson is the most common subject, well ahead of Marie Curie.
This paper will examine the cultural meanings these biographies attach to Carson and her scientific work as they attempt to provide a role model for girls. What are the narrative structures and how does gender function in this genre? How do these biographies convey the nature of science and women's place within it? What aspects of Rachel Carson's work do they highlight? How do they interweave her personal life and her career, when she was such a private person? How do they describe the scientific community's response to the Silent Spring? The paper will conclude with some critical reflections on the problems with the construction of such historical role models.
In the second part of the paper I look into a second cultural environment: the second half of the Twenty Century . I try to draw some paralells between the way in which quantum theory has been interpreted and the way in which our views on evolution have changed. During the first half of this Century quantum mechanics was interpreted in such a way that its explanatory scope was restricted to a mechanistic view of the world that was essentially ahistorical. At the end of the Twentieth Century, however, an important interpretive current looks at quantum mechanics as a theory that promotes the view that our world, and everything in it has a history. I will conclude by elaborating some of the implications of this view for our concept of evolution, and the way in which these changes reflect changes in our understanding of the world at large.
Christopher Horvath, Illinois State University, "Measuring Gender"
Over the past several years, various operational definitions of gender have been used in studies of gender conformity in homosexual males. The goal of these studies is to demonstrate that childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) is either the proximate cause of adult homosexuality or an intermediate step in a series biologically mediated processes. An examination of several of these studies shows that the operational concepts of gender being used are based on stereotypes or on a mixture of other political and cultural assumptions. The hypothesis of a causal connection between the development of gender and sexual orientation is embedded within the context of a biological (evolutionary) understanding of human behavior. Thus, testing the hypothesis of a causal connection between CGN and sexuality requires a concept of gender that is compatible with the basic principles of biological causation and our current understanding of biological processes. I will argue that the concepts of gender used in this research are inappropriate because they do not distinguish the aspects of gender that might reasonably be suspected of having a significant biological causal component from those that are unlikely to have any significant biological basis. Using data gathered from studies on behavioral differences between heterosexual and homosexual men and women, I will derive and argue for a concept of gender that would make the hypothesis that there is a causal, biological, connection between CGN and adult sexual orientation testable.
Friday, July 18, 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
XXVI Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Five: Biology Informs Philosophy of Mind
Thomas Polger & Owen Flanagan, Duke, "Biological Explanations of Subjectivity"
The trend today in philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind is toward one or another flavor of naturalism. Theories of every sort are said to be "neurobiologically realistic," "biologically naturalistic," or just plain "natural." One particularly popular way to locate one theory of mind within the bounds of naturalism is situate one's philosophy within evolutionary theory, and to try to provide a plausible story of why the mental trait in question has come to be. In particular, an adaptationist explanation is sought for the mental traits we hold dearest to our hearts, such as consciousness.
We are critical of the mind sciences' vague appeal to Darwinism. But, we argue, careful attention to what biologists and philosophers of biology have to say about evolution--about adaptation, adaptiveness and function, as well as about whether consciousness should be thought of as a single biological trait--illuminates issues in both the philosophy of mind and biology.
Charbel Nino El-Hani & Antonio Marcos Pereira, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, "Supervenience, Reduction, Emergence and Biological Causation: A Reply to Kim"
Since the beginnings of modern science, reductionism has been the paradigm in scientific explanation. Biological explanation is no exception. Many biologists seem to think that causal explanation must always proceed towards a reduction of biological processes to molecular phenomena. The gene-centric view of development is a standard example of this reductionist bias in biological explanation. The appearance of obviousness that reductionist explanations acquire, due to a mistaken parallel between supervenience and reduction, can be seen as one of the factors contributing for the prevalence of reductionism: if it is obvious that most biological processes are supervenient on physical-chemical phenomena, it is anything but obvious that it can or must be understood by means of a reduction to the molecular level. In this essay, we discuss the relations between supervenience, reduction and emergence, regarding biological explanation. The argument is developed as a polemic against Kim. This philosopher argued that mind-body supervenience leads to a dilemma: if mind-body supervenience fails, mental causation is unintelligible; if it holds, mental causation is again unintelligible; hence, mental causation is unintelligible. A question is raised by his argument: is the causal efficacy of all properties that supervene on basic physical properties unintelligible? He answers: no, because with properties like biological and chemical properties, we are much more willing to accept a reductionist solution. Here we try to show that, first, biological properties are not so easily reducible as Kim assumes, and, second, that reduction is not the only way out of Kim's dilemma: emergence can lead to another escape route, solving Kim's dilemma in the case of both biological and mental properties.
This work was partially supported by grants from PICDT-CAPES (C.N.E.) and PIBIC/UFBA-CNPq (A.M.P.)
XXVII Animal Issues: Studies Into Animals, Animal Sciences And Philosophy Of Animals. The goal is to create some continuity between the lectures, participants and discussions of these sessions. Possible issues of these sessions can be: history of animal sciences, animal subjectivity, animal ethics, animal politics, cultural views on animals, and human-animal relationships. Organizers: Chip Burkhardt (
Session Three: Animals and Culture
Elizabeth Hanson, "Pennies For Elephants: American Zoos And The Popular Meaning Of Wildlife, 1870-1940."
Between 1870 and 1940 more than one hundred zoological parks and gardens opened in American cities. Planners and managers of the new zoos distinguished their institutions from earlier menageries by stating their mission as more than recreation: their goals also included the advancement of science, public education, and the preservation of rare species. How audiences perceived the zoo's mission is less clear. But wherever zoos were established, they received an enthusiastic -and active- public reception: local people rushed to collect and donate animals. The variety of animals offered in correspondence to zoo directors, from lions and bears to three-legged chickens, reveals a range of ideas about what zoos were for. Donating animals to the zoo could also be a community project. In 1914, the Boston Post coordinated a campaign for the city's children to donate their pennies to purchase three retired sideshow elephants for the new Franklin Park Zoo. More than 50.000 spectators crowded the ceremony in Fenway Park on the day the governor of Massachusetts presented the animals to Boston's mayor, who accepted them for the city. This paper explores popular interpretation of the zoo at the turn of the twentieth century through the activities of an engaged zoo public - people who collected and donated animals.
Greg Mitman, University of Oklahoma, "True-Life Adventures: Disney's Nature In Cold War American Culture."
Disney's True-life Adventures, a nature film series that began with Seal Island in 1948, helped establish the marketability of nature as a commodity for consumption within Cold War American culture, and cultivated an appreciation for wilderness as a source of aesthetic value beyond the limited membership of conservation organizations within the United States. Disney's naturalists, which included amateurs and scientists alike, found their photographic journeys into wilderness reinstalled a sense of individualism and freedom and thereby offered a therapeutic restorative to the conformist trends of 1950s American mass society. For the general public, the nature Disney captured on screen reinforced an admixture of family and religious values, thought to represent the conventional ideals of the American suburban home. In this paper, I explore the whidespread appeal of Disney's True-life Adventures by investigating how naturalists, conservation organizations, and the middle-class public made meaning out of Disney's nature on screen in different, but overlapping, ways.
XXVIII Developmental Systems Theory (DST), Organizers: Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths, Ron Amundson, and Lenny Moss
Session One: DST: What Genes Can't Do.
Lenny Moss. Introduction: The point of departure for this session is the idea that typical references to genes or genomes as "instructions" or "blueprints" for "making an organism" trade upon a conflation of different meanings of "the gene" which have been derived from separate disciplinary contexts. Where a gene can said to be a gene for a phenotype, as in genes for diseases such as Huntington's disease or cystic fibrosis, the referent of "gene" is not some definite entity but rather the absence of that specific nucleic acid sequence which is required for normal function. Where a gene is a gene for some definite sequence of nucleic acids, as in the gene for N-CAM, or a gene for a glycosyl-transferase, its relationship to a phenotype is indeterminate and capable of contributing to any number of different (both normal and pathological) phenotypes. Only by conflating these senses of "the gene" does one derive a usage which simultaneously implies both some necessary sequence of nucleic acids and a determinate relationship to a specific phenotype. The objective of this session will be to consider three different senses of "the gene", i. e., the transmission gene, the molecular gene, and the selfish gene, and delineate some of the proper limits of each.
Bob Perlman, University of Chicago: "What Transgenic Mice Tell Us About Development"
The ability to disrupt a gene by homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells and then to create mice that have null mutations in this gene is one of the technological triumphs of contemporary biology. While the study of these "knockout" mice has yielded new information about physiology and disease, many of these mutants have phenotypes that can't easily be understood simply in terms of the known activities of the gene products they are lacking. These results provide an opportunity to reinterpret studies on the role of genes in development. Dobzhansky's aphorism, "Heredity is particulate, but development is unitary," captures the incongruence between genetic and organismal approaches to development and the difficulties in interpreting development in terms of the actions of individual genes. I will discuss the resources that reduce the dependence of developing organisms on the activity of individual genes and enable them to maintain development in the face of mutations or other perturbations. These resources include maternal gene products that provide non-genomic information to the developing organism, gene families whose products have overlapping or redundant biological activities, regulatory networks that enable cells to function when one component of the network is absent, and feedback mechanisms by which organisms monitor their growth and regulate their development. Properly interpreted, studies of transgenic mice may yet tell us something important about regulatory processes in developing organisms.
Rob Knight & Paul Griffiths: "What Selfish Genes Can't Do"
Natural selection occurs when individuals in a population differ in their ability to cope with a common selective environment. Macroevolutionary processes involving selection between species and higher taxa rather than within populations of one species are both empirically and conceptually controversial. Gene selectionists have neglected equivalent distinctions at the molecular level. We apply the main existing species concepts to DNA sequences in a search for groupings within which there can be natural selection. The potential for adaptation through natural selection at the molecular level turns out to be more limited than is often suggested. As a prelude to this investigation we show that the individuals to which these various grouping criteria are applied should be classical molecular genes and not the evolutionary genes introduced by G.C Williams. We conclude with a suggestion for improving on the classical molecular gene concept.
Ron Amundson, "Methodological Preformationism in Evolutionary Biology"
Developmental biology has been only on the fringes of mainstream evolutionary theory since the Modern Synthesis. Specific evolutionary arguments can be given which assert the irrelevance of embryological development to evolution. Advocates of the importance of development have recently begun to use the term "preformationist" as an epithet against this anti-developmental evolutionism, likening it to the ancient view that the germ of an organism contains a tiny but fully formed adult. The same epithet was used by embryologists against particulate theories of inheritance, including Mendelism, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this paper I will argue that mainstream evolutionary theory is indeed committed to a sort of Methodological Preformationism, a research strategy which marginalizes developmental biology while making only minimal commitments regarding the actual nature of embryological development. This strategy may be responsible for part of the success of Synthesis biology. Nevertheless its byproduct is an a priori restriction on the scope and nature of evolutionary explanation. The relevance of development to evolution cannot even be tested without violating the research strategy of Methodological Preformationism.
XXIXDarwin, Spencer and Owen
Daniel Becquemont, Université Lille, France, "Spencer's Views On Darwin's Theory"
Spencer, in his Principles of Biology, tried to include Darwin's theory of natural selection in his own laws of evolution. He divided the complex network of relationships which formed the concept of "struggle for existence" in Darwin's theory into two types of hierarchical actions: direct and indirect adaptation. In Spencer's principles, the struggle for existence ceased to be a metaphorical expression and was used with its former pre-Darwinian meaning. Natural selection was understood by him mainly as a secondary process submitted to a more general balance of nature, or reduced to a mere process of elimination. The Darwinian theory could be expressed by concepts borrowed from Spencer's Principles, in abstract terms of equilibrium. Natural selection could conform to the same mechanical principles as all other forms of equilibration. Twenty years later, when Weismann's theories began to challenge Spencer's belief in the inheritance of acquired characters, Spencer took a more negative stand and spoke of the "insufficiency of natural selection". He argued that a theory which maintained that the only explanation to evolution was natural selection should be considered as a perversion of Darwinism and "biological fetishism".
Mark McLaren, University of Pittsburgh (email: e-mail:
As part of a broader critique of Darwinian evolutionary theory, comparative anatomist Richard Owen advocated a quasi-Lamarckian theory of spontaneous generation. At first blush, this seems puzzling, for as Adrian Desmond and others have noted, Owen was generally a staunch opponent of Lamarckian evolutionism. How could he embrace spontaneous generation without thereby embracing a transmutationist view of species? Nicholaas Rupke suggests that Owen adopted his view of spontaneous generation because it was contrary to Darwinian evolution, or, to what seemed an inevitable corollary: that all life descended from a limited number of organisms which were the result of a miraculous event. But Owen's view was much more than a reaction to Darwinism. This paper will show that, although Owen's reasons for believing in the possibility of spontaneous generation were not obvious, they were fully consistent with his scientific methodology and they followed naturally from his views on serial homology. Like Lamarck, Owen believed that spontaneous generation was continually taking place on earth - as the inevitable result of physical forces. Owen's views are significant for at least two reasons. First, depictions of his anti-Darwinian stance as theologically or politically motivated have tended to overlook or distort the naturalistic, conceptual aspects of his theistic biology. Such treatments perpetuate the mythical dichotomy between atheistic evolutionists and anti-evolutionary theists who were forced to alter their views to accord with Darwinian evolution. Second, categories such as "materialism" and "vitalism" are ill-suited to an analysis of Owen's position, a point which has serious historiographical implications.
Rasmus Winther, French-American International School, San Francisco, 94102 (email:
Darwinian theory after the Modern Synthesis associates variation and its inheritance with internal causes such as mutation, and links adaptation with external causes such as selection. Although Darwin's conception of the external sources of adaptation coincides with the modern position, his views about the causes of variation differ from current theory. In the 19th century, biologists identified several types of external sources of heritable variation. Before Weismann postulated the sequestered germ-line, the environment was perceived as acting through either the entire body or the reproductive organs to trigger or direct variation. Initially, Darwin held that the environment directed adaptive changes through the reproductive organs. Then rethinking his position between 1837-1838, he reasoned that a changing environment simply triggered heritable variation, whether adaptive or not, in the reproductive organs. He continued to insist that the environment was necessary to generate variation. Darwin also maintained that the body was a site for environmentally-directed heritable variation. Whereas the first edition of the Origin of Species emphasized the effect of a changing environment on the reproductive organs, the last edition, as well as the Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, stressed the effect on the body as a whole. Pangenesis provides an explanation for how the environment affects the reproductive organs and the body to produce heritable variation. Pangenesis was as much a hypothesis for the sources of variation as for the mechanisms of heredity. Unlike modern biologists, Darwin held that the causes of variation are always external.
XXX Environmental Issues
Mags Adams, Lancaster University (email:
The risks and uncertainties associated with such things as dioxins, pesticides, industrial chemicals, some metals and not a few natural chemicals are slowly starting to be recognised. The fact that some of these chemicals and compounds cause disruption to the endocrine systems of wildlife and humans is not a minor issue. The problem is that, because these substances are at large in our environment, it is difficult to trace any direct cause and effect mechanism. This has huge implications for regulators - are their hands tied due to lack of evidence? - or does such a situation call for precautionary action?
The dilemma is whether models can accurately predict what will happen once another chemical is released into the environment and whether it is necessary to wait for that evidence before action is taken. My proposition is that action should be taken to avoid the possible consequences - but what to do about those endocrine disruptors that are already at large? Can modeling show us the whole extent of the situation? What action should be taken in the meantime? This paper will examine the role of the Precautionary Principle in forming answers to such questions and will outline the strengths and limitations of risk assessment in the process.
Uta Eser, Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, University of Tuebingen, Germany, "Ecological And Normative Fundamentals Of Value-Judgements In Conservation Biology: The Case Of Non-Indigenous Plants In Nature-Conservation Areas"
Basic ecology as a value-free natural science is limited to mere descriptions of natural communities and their anthropogenic induced changes. Management decisions, however, need assessments of these changes and therefore require values and norms. Origin and validity of those norms are analyzed in a case-study: the presently vehement discussion in Germany, concerning the management of so-called 'biological invasions'. Non-indigenous plants are conceived as a problem for ecological or economic reasons. However, the problems caused by 'aliens' seem to be exaggerated compared to other environmental problems. Since the subjects of the conflict are 'non-natives' the debate tends to be somewhat ideological. Accused of a xenophobic bias ecologists usually refer to the objectivity of their science, which is supposed to be free of value-judgements. The objective of my study is to investigate the extent of value-judgements within ecology. The arguments of the debate are analyzed and evaluated concerning their tacit or explicit theoretical, ethical or political assumptions. In particular I discuss, if it is possible to use value-laden terms like 'aliens' or 'invasion' in a scientific value-free way without preforming value-judgements by their negative connotations.
This work is part of an interdisciplinary research programme 'Ecology and Environmental Ethics' which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Scientific Research (FKZ 0339561)
Thomas Potthast, University of Tuebingen (e-mail:
The perspective of change in ecosystems - within communities as well as speciation processes - have become a focus of ecology, nature conservation, and environmental ethics. The idea to protect evolutionary potentials and processes was developed mainly in response of threats to Global Biodiversity. Arguments supporting human evolutionary responsibility explicitly refer to evolutionary theories (e.g. island biogeography, population genetics). The general question is: what constitutes the relationship between i) biodiversity as the result of evolution, ii) evolutionary theories, and iii) aims, justification, and ethics of conservation? A short history of concepts is presented to highlight how the idea of evolution was integrated into conservation practice and theory. This includes different scientific theories and perceptions of nature, and a variety of ethical stances.
Concepts of change and evolutionary processes within ecosystems have a great impact on evaluations and value judgements, because - of course - conservation efforts are shaped by the way nature is perceived. Therefore, I will discuss which aspects are represented in the evolutionary view, especially concerning the role of time and individuality. In some respect these aspects conflict with other concepts of ecology as well as conservation. Thus, some epistemological and ethical reflections on the status of 'scientific reasoning using evolution' within nature conservation will be presented. It will be shown that arguments from evolutionary biology and ethical reasoning cannot be separated and that therefore a sound analysis of their interrelations will be necessary for further development of both, public policy as well as theoretical and epistemological debates.
XXXI Going Molecular. One measure of the maturation of a science is its conversion from an independent discipline into a set of tools utilized by workers in other fields. For some years, historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science have been interested in the development of molecular biology, primarily as an outgrowth of classical genetics. This session considers not the origins of molecular biology, but its penetration into other sciences. In the last 30 years, nearly every branch of the life sciences has ìgone molecularî; fields from embryology to ecology have incorporated molecular techniques in the reductionist drive toward identifying the smallest units of natural change. In this session, we will consider the intellectual, technical, and social consequences of this pattern. Lindley Darden examines how study of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, traditionally associated with the early 19th century naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and widely discredited near the beginning of this century, again became serious science through molecular techniques in the study of directed mutation. Martha Keyes examines the problem of the ìviralî disease scrapie and why a theory of infectious proteins became so controversial. Both Keyes and Darden touch on the constraints on biological theory imposed by the ìCentral Dogmaî of genetic information flow, and on the evolution and broadening of that theory to incorporate new molecular data. Greg Morgan picks up the evolutionary theme in his paper on the development of the molecular clock as a technique for measuring the rate of evolution. Robert Olby looks at neuroscience going molecular; his comparison of research on ìmemory moleculesî in the 1950s with that in the 1980s and 1990s illustrates that molecular biology has been used as a wedge to distance ìmodernî science from discredited earlier research ñ even when clear conceptual and historical links exist between them. Nathaniel C. Comfort shows that ìgoing molecularî has also been used to link the past with the present in order to redress perceived deficiencies of credit. He re-examines the standard myth that classical cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock was ìrediscoveredî when molecular biologists in the 1970s identified and cloned transposable elements, which she discovered in corn in the 1940s. The papers in this session are linked by themes including the explanatory power of molecular biologyís ìcentral dogmaî; the use of molecular techniques to revise the internal history of a discipline; and interdisciplinary connections among different branches of the life sciences. Molecularization of the life sciences has had a profound impact on late 20th century biology; in this session we hope to illustrate some examples of that impact and raise questions of how historians, philosophers, and sociologists might come to grips with the ruthless reductionism and interdisciplinary synthesis implied by ìgoing molecular.î Organizers: Nathaniel C. Comfort and Lindley Darden (
Session One:
Lindley Darden, University of Maryland, ìFrom Inheritance of Acquired Characters to Adaptive Mutationî
The problem of inheritance of acquired characters has a recent, molecular incarnation in the controversy about adaptive (directed) mutation in bacteria. Since 1988, when Cairns and colleagues purportedly found evidence for such mutations, controversy has ensued about whether such adaptive mutations actually exist. Evidence for directed changes in DNA sequences, controlled by environmental conditions in which such a sequence would be more fit, would be striking. It would be an anomaly for both the central dogma of molecular biology and the Neo-Darwinian, synthetic theory of evolution. This anomaly and its implications are examined within the context of a perspective on theory change developed in previous work: anomaly-driven theory redesign. As I have argued elsewhere (Theory Change In Science, 1991), scientific theories change in response to empirical anomalies, conceptual problems, and interfield connections. This case examines the implications of a molecular version of inheritance of acquired characters for possible changes in the most widely applicable of all generalizations in molecular biology, the central dogma, and for the most widely applicable theory in evolutionary biology, the synthetic theory.
Robert Olby, University of Pittsburgh, ìMemory Molecules: A Case Study in the Impact of Molecular Biology on the Neurosciences?î
The paper opens with a brief sketch of the differing views that have been expressed concerning the nature of the impact of molecular biology upon neurobiology and of the benefits of inter-disciplinarity. Then it takes the case of ìmemory moleculesî from the 1960s and investigates the nature of the support for this research and the disciplinary allegiance of the actors in the controversies that ensued. Although the controversies of the 1960s came to an end, research into the chemistry of memory continued unabated. Therefore it is possible to chart the impact of some of the developments in molecular biology upon this field by comparing the chemistry of memory in the ë60s with the chemistry of memory in the ë80s, and by examining the retrospective comments of researchers looking back two decades to the work of the ë60s. These retrospectives show a deliberate wish to distance recent work from its origins in the ë60s.
Greg Morgan, University of Pittsburgh, ìEmile Zuckerkandl, Linus Pauling and the Molecular Evolutionary Clockî
In the early 1960s, Linus Pauling and Emile Zuckerkandl utilized techniques from molecular biology in the hope of illuminating the evolutionary process. Following a cross-species analysis of hemoglobin amino acid sequences, they proposed an idea which became known as ìthe evolutionary molecular clock hypothesis.î They suggested that hemoglobin had an approximately constant rate of evolution and its ìclock-likeî evolution could be used to estimate the time of past speciation events. I trace the roots and early development of the Zuckerkandl-Pauling collaboration and the reception of their molecular view within the organismally based community. More specifically, I examine the responses of Ernst Mayr and George Gaylord Simpson, both who (at least at first) resisted the evolutionary molecular clock hypothesis and the molecular approach to evolution.
Friday, July 18, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
XXXII Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Six: Psychology Informs Biology
Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania, "Mental Functions as Constraints on Neurophysiology: Biology and Psychology of Color Vision"
The concept of function has been prominent in both philosophy of biology and philosophy of psychology. Philosophy of psychology, or philosophical analysis of psychological theory, reveals that rigorous functional analyses can be carried out in advance of physiological knowledge. Indeed, in the area of sensory perception, and color vision in particular, knowledge of psychological function leads the way in the individuation and investigation of visual neurophysiology. Psychological functions constrain biological investigation. This example is of general interest as an instance of the relation between biological and psychological functions and their "wet" realizations.
Valerie Gray Hardcastle, Virginia Tech, "Understanding Functions: A Pragmatic Approach"
In an article celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Larry Wright's seminal paper, "Functions," Peter Godfrey-Smith asserts that, "much of the literature [on functions] has ... engaged in the refinement of Wright's original idea." Others label Wright's characterization "the Standard View." However, only by focusing on a very narrow use of the term is the apparent unanimity among philosophers of biology possible. How we understand the question a functional explanation in the biological and social sciences is supposed to answer is crucially important for any philosophical analysis of functions and many philosophers of biology construe them much too narrowly. Consequently, the three sorts of analyses currently in vogue in philosophy are all at risk of death from a thousand failures. A different approach to understanding functions is required, one that is more faithful to science as it is actually practiced and to how functions are actually assigned.
In this essay, I shall outline a pragmatics of explanation for functions: Functions are simply what T is doing in o, relative to a domain of inquiry. However, the relativity of an explanatory structure distinguishes neither the biological and social sciences from physics and chemistry, nor functional explanations from any other.
XXXIII Animal Issues: Studies Into Animals, Animal Sciences And Philosophy Of Animals. The goal is to create some continuity between the lectures, participants and discussions of these sessions. Possible issues of these sessions can be: history of animal sciences, animal subjectivity, animal ethics, animal politics, cultural views on animals, and human-animal relationships. Organizers: Chip Burkhardt (
Session Four: Old New Views On Animal Science
Susanne Lijmbach, Wageningen Agricultural University (the Netherlands), "The Phenomenological View On The Animal Self And Its Implications For Current Debates About Animal Experiences."
The societal criticism on the ways in which animals are treated, has led to ethological theories and animal ethics in which animals are conceived as beings who experience their situation and treatments. But, the actual conceptions of animal experiences still are biased by a natural scientific view on animals and, therefore, on animal experiences. Knowledge of the meaning of animal experiences, however, requires a view on animals, which holds on experiences as distinct from processes in non-living nature. This view on animals is offered by Helmuth Plessner and Frederik Buytendijk. In "Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch", Plessner developed a philosophy of life, which makes understandable the emergence of the human self from the self of animals and plants. According to Plessner, the animal self appears to us as a bodily and environmentally bound self. The next stage of the self, the reflexive human self, is a logically necessary step in the development of life.
Buytendijk, a Dutch animal psychologist and colleague and friend of Plessner, demonstrated this bodily and environmentally bound animal self in his experiments with animals of different species. By means of some examples of these experiments, his phenomenological concept of animal experiences and his method of research into the meaning of animal behaviour will be explained. At the end some conclusions will be drawn with regard to the relevance of this phenomenological view on the animal self for actual, ethological and ethical debates about animal experiences.
Kelly Hamilton, Saint Mary's College, "The Organismal Biology Of Edward Stuart Russell."
E.S. Russell is now perhaps known for his classical philosophical history of morphology "Form and function", which was published in 1916. His mature work from the 1930s and 1040s, however, was probably more influential during his lifetime.
My paper will examine this later period in his philosophical development, his organismal philosophy of biology. From his presidential address to the zoological section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1934 on "The study of behavior" through the publication of "The directiveness of organic activities" in 1945, he argued that the organism taken 'alive and whole' must be the primary unit for biological study. This methodological standpoint informed Russell's later work. His presidential address reflected his concern that the study of animal behavior was becoming divorced from zoology. It was becoming the province of the physiologist and the psychologist, "neither of whom is as a rule sufficient naturalist to appreciate fully the biological significance of the behavior observed in the laboratory". His book "The behavior of animals" was based upon his lectures in the Department of Zoology at University College, London from 1932-1947 and was credited by A.C. Hardy with a substantial influence on experiments concerning animal behavior. I will conclude with a consideration of his more detailed development of these ideas in "The directiveness of organic activities".
Otniel Dror, Princeton University, "The Physical And The Emotional: Separating Psyche From Soma In The Physiologist's Laboratory."
During the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century a chort of prominent physiologists (Angelo Mosso, Walter B. Cannon, Ernest L. Scott, Joseph Barcoft, etc.) challenged the validity of the existing standards and norms of their discipline. They argued that the routine manipulation of organisms in the laboratory (such as handling, caging, injecting, inspecting, etc.) evoked emotions in these organisms, and that these emotions were expressed physiologically - as changes in the organisms' blood pressure, glucose level, metabolic rate and much more. Thus, any physiological change observed in an organism during the course of any experiment could be the effect of two different causes: the experimenter's deliberate manipulation of the organism or the organism's emotional reaction to these manipulations (e.g. fear, anger, joy, etc.).
Arguing that previous physiologists had ignored these confounding possibilities, this emerging chort of emotion-conscious physiologists proposed a new set of practices for isolating and distinguishing between physical and emotional causes of physiological change. The essay describes and analyzes the new practices and the novel conceptual framework developed by these physiologists for differentiating between, and isolating, the physical and the emotional.
XXXIV Developmental Systems Theory (DST), Organizers: Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths, Ron Amundson, and Lenny Moss
Session Two: DST: Towards A Developmental Conception Of Genetics And Evolution
Bruce Weber, California State University, Fullerton; and David Depew, University of Iowa, "Developmental Systems, Autocatalytic Cycles, and Thermodynamic Imperatives"
In Developmental Systems Theory (DST), pioneered by Susan Oyama, a range of developmental resources, only some of which are genetic, are expressed in self-organizing ontogenetic processes that do not need a central information source and that cannot readily be decomposed into separate causal factors. What is reliably produced by this epigenetic process is a developmental cycle. Paul Griffiths, Russell Gray, and others have brought this perspective to bear on issues in Darwinian evolutionary theory by arguing that variations in developmental cycles are units of selection. In turn, our aim is to bring this sort of Darwinism into closer conjunction with what we have called "chemical selection," according to which, both before and after the threshold between non-living and living has been crossed, thermodynamic imperatives undergird a selection process among autocatalytic cycles. In this paper we will argue that the emergence of natural selection for the biologically fit from this prior sort of selection for the chemically efficient makes it more plausible that developmental cycles will be units of selection, will have their remote origins in chemical or autocatalytic selection, work in conjunction with self-organization, and are constrained by thermodynamic imperatives to a greater extent than Darwinians have generally liked to believe. Our intention is to lend support to the kind of Darwinism envisioned by DST, as well as to elicit from DST further support for the sort of "ecological Darwinism" we espouse.
Eva Neumann-Held: "Let's De-Blackbox the Gene!"
Genes, as they are generally understood, influence, or even determine, developmental processes. They also play a major role in evolutionary theory, since evolution is usually conceptualized as a shift in allele frequencies in a population's gene pool. The gene seems to be at the center of it all, and an understanding the gene seems to promise an understanding of life itself. But what are "genes"? We know more than ever about the molecular [last word underlined] level of structures and processes of DNA, RNA and polypeptide synthesis--that is, about the level to which "gene" is traditionally taken to refer. Although molecular biologists talk about genes all the time, however, new molecular research makes it difficult to apply traditional gene concepts to the molecular level. The "gene" still seems to be a "black box" rather than a well-defined entity or process. I want to take genes out of their black box, and show that it is possible and useful to develop a new gene concept that integrates the empirical data of molecular biology. This new concept fits and extends the framework of Developmental Systems Theory. I would also like to discuss the relations between this proposed gene concept and others currently used in biology, in particular Dawkins's evolutionary gene [last 2 words underlined].
Lenny Moss, University of Utah: "What is Selecting What?"
While differential survival of reproducing systems surely plays a role in evolution (as well as in development) it is at best a very thin, and often misleading, description of the complex, ecological and developmental, stabilizing and/or inductive interactions between boundary maintaining levels of biological organization which are ultimately responsible for the viability or demise of biological enterprises. The ability of even the simplest cellular systems to assume a great variety of alternative dynamic states, susceptible of both inductive perturbation and coupled stabilization, provides a foothold with which to begin to bring the processes of development and evolution back into a common framework. Reconceptualizing "selection" in terms of the selective (and recursive) stabilization of metabolic regimes, it will be argued, can make sense of the antiquity and pervasive context dependence of genetic elements (exons), the role of multi-gene families in the emergence of "higher" life-forms, the evolutionary relevance of adaptive developmental potential, as well as allow for a renewed, post-Mendelian, epigenetic conception of "final cause."
XXXV 19th Century Physics and Biology
Sergio F. Martinez Muñoz , Instituto de Investigaciones Filosoficas, UNAM, "History, Evolution And Their Changing Grounds In Physics And Biology"
The concepts of history , evolution and mechanism have had a close but changing relationship since the nineteenth century. In this paper I want to show how these changes in turn are related to changes in our understanding of physical reality. In particular, I want to show how discussions about the explanatory scope of fundamental physical theories are related to our understanding of evolution. I will compare two different cultural environments. First, around mid Nineteenth Century there are important differences among the concepts of evolution proposed by many authors. I will single out for discussion the notions that play a leading role in the work of Chambers, Spencer and Darwin . Their differences will be examined in connection with the discussion between Herschel and Whewell on the explanatory scope of natural causes, and most generally, with the interpretation of Newtonian mechanics as a fundamental physical theory. I will show how the different notions of evolution (and its relation to history) are related to the different views on the explanatory scope of physical theory. My claim is not that the discussion on the foundations of physics single handed shaped the different views on evolution; in an important sense, the discussion on the foundations of physics both was informed and reflected the broader discussion about the nature and scope of scientific knowledge and its role in society.
In the second part of the paper I look into a second cultural environment: the second half of the Twenty Century . I try to draw some paralells between the way in which quantum theory has been interpreted and the way in which our views on evolution have changed. During the first half of this Century quantum mechanics was interpreted in such a way that its explanatory scope was restricted to a mechanistic view of the world that was essentially ahistorical. At the end of the Twentieth Century, however, an important interpretive current looks at quantum mechanics as a theory that promotes the view that our world, and everything in it has a history. I will conclude by elaborating some of the implications of this view for our concept of evolution, and the way in which these changes reflect changes in our understanding of the world at large.
Patrick J. McDonald University of Notre Dame, "Helmholtz and Darwin: Happy Union, or Unholy Alliance?"
One of the oldest questions raised by natural philosophers concerns explaining the processes of life by appealing to purely physical operations. Hermann von Helmholtz provided one of the first truly powerful means to realize such a program, when he articulated his principle of the conservation of force in a famous paper published in 1847. He had performed numerous experiments on living tissue, trying to show that the processes of life could be captured by the quantitative conversions and interactions of known, empirically detectable, and precisely quantifiable physical forces. The success of such efforts might have provided a crucial experiment to rule out appeal to the non-physical in the explanation of life. He may thereby have provided an initial key to the actual achievement of a physico-chemical explanation of life. However, a number of objections have been raised which threaten the completeness, but more importantly, the coherence of the view presented by Helmholtz. Timothy Lenoir, in his Strategy of Life has argued that while Helmholtz showed that physiological processes could be shown to operate within the bounds of the conservation of force, such a principle had nothing to offer regarding questions concerning the origins and development of life. Thus Helmholtz needed an additional theory to fill out an incomplete framework.
Darwin provided just the ìmissing linkî in 1859, with the publication of the Origin of Species. However, Lenoir claims that three related problems arose for Helmholtz. One, was that the Darwinian theory of evolution conflicted with the Newtonian conceptual foundations of Helmholtzís research program. Secondly, the second law of thermodynamics, known by Helmholtz to be intimately related to the conservation of force, seemed to contradict or at least raise serious questions for Darwinís theory of evolution. Finally, Lenoir argues that both Darwinian evolution and the second law of thermodynamics required an interpretation as fundamentally statistical natural laws. As such, they would seriously undermine the coherence of Helmholtzís Newtonian, deterministic, and mechanistic philosophy of science.
The primary goal of this essay is to clearly explain how this set of problems develops within Helmholtzís work and to defend the coherence of Helmholtzís research program. I will act as an advocate on behalf of Helmholtz. I will not so much argue that Helmholtz offered a view which was ultimately vindicated, for many of his basic assumptions proved to be inadequate in one way or another. Rather, the most important claim is that the program was not prima facie incoherent. Further, it has been suggested that Helmholtz was aware of serious difficulties, particularly with regard to evolution and the second law of thermodynamics. I shall try to show that while aware of significant questions regarding the bringing together of Darwinís theory and the developing knowledge of energy physics, Helmholtz rightly argued that there were no clear and well established reasons to think the two fields could not be harmoniously synthesized.
XXXVI Experimentation
Edna Suarez, Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM Circuito Exterior, C. U. Mexico, "Satellite-Dna: A Case Study For The Evolution Of Experimental Techniques"
Many case studies in the history and sociology of biology in the last years have focused on the temporal and social dimensions of the relations between models, technology and scientific facts. From these studies it appears that a process of mutual tinkering and adjustment between these elements is an important condition for the construction of experimental knowledge. However, the experimental practices involved in the tinkering process have been treated, mostly, in a rhetorical and coarse-grained manner. I shall argue that a more detailed description of the relationship between models, technology and phenomena is needed for a better understanding of this process, and that such a study must involve a finer-grained analysis of experimental practices of a certain kind, namely, experimental techniques. The analysis I am proposing recognized that experimental techniques depend upon the fairly stable reproduction of social and material constraints embodied in our technological arrangements. Material constraints are not just "limits" for our material practices, but they are also an important source of the variability and adaptability that experimental practices display in new experimental contexts. This is so because of a peculiar feature of these sort of practices: its modular structure (a notion I will further explain in my presentation).
I shall present the case of the early evolution of nucleic acid hybridization, a family of experimental techniques which were used in the origins of Molecular evolution in the 60`s and 70`s. These techniques played an important role in the first attempts to measure genetic homologies between biological species. Moreover, the evolution and versatility of these techniques soon led to an unexpected phenomenon of eukaryotic genomes, namely satellite-DNA, by Roy Britten and colleagues in 1968. I will try to show that a detailed analysis of the evolution of experimental techniques such as nucleic acid hybridization, throws light upon the process of tinkering and adaptation between scientific facts and our scientific tools.
John Huss, University of Chicago, "The Natural Experiment Concept In Paleontology"
Here I draw on the work of Campbell and Cook on "quasi-experimentation" in the social sciences to give an account of the character of argumentation in some recent work in analytical paleobiology. Paleontologists sometimes use the fossil record to conduct "natural experiments." This usually means either an hypothesis test, or the assessment of an evolutionary response to some perturbation in background conditions. Because paleontologists cannot intervene in the course of past events, they use natural perturbations (e.g., mass extinctions) and responses (e.g., evolutionary rebounds) reconstructed from the fossil record to move from narrative to general theory. Perturbations judged to be of the same sort occurring in different times and places may be treated as experimental replicates. Lacking the usual elements of experimental design (randomization of experimental units, large numbers of replicates, planned treatments, and control groups) which cover threats to valid inference by ceteris paribus assumptions, paleontologists are forced either to argue that ceteris really is paribus with respect to the properties of interest, or to exhaustively specify and directly tackle threats to the validity of their inferences. These considerations drive both argumentation and methodological innovation (e.g., Jablonski and Bottjer's use of taphonomic control groups) in paleontology, as perhaps in other fields where experimental manipulation is not feasible.
Mark Parascandola, National Museum of American History (email
In 1981 the British journal Nature described ìtwo views of the causes of cancer,î one that studied statistical associations and risk factors among populations and another that looked for basic causal mechanisms in the laboratory. The former approach, often called risk factor epidemiology, has come under increasing criticism in regulatory and legal arenas for being ìunscientific.î While epidemiology has been highly successful in establishing itself as a profession during this century, it is puzzling that many epidemiologists remain highly skeptical and self-conscious about the status of their own causal claims.
This situation persists in part because of widespread and historically significant beliefs about the ìcontrolled laboratoryî and the problems of drawing inferences from unhomogeneous populations. Moreover, some philosophers of science have reinforced a skeptical stance towards epidemiological studies by offering causal theories that grant substantial epistemic favor to the laboratory. I will present some historical background to these debates among medical researchers and philosophers. I will then respond to the skeptical challenges raised by arguing that the same sorts of epistemic shortcomings identified in epidemiological studies are also present in the laboratory. However, the result need not be a broader skepticism; instead, I will maintain that these epistemic concerns do not preclude reliable causal knowledge.
XXXVII Going Molecular. One measure of the maturation of a science is its conversion from an independent discipline into a set of tools utilized by workers in other fields. For some years, historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science have been interested in the development of molecular biology, primarily as an outgrowth of classical genetics. This session considers not the origins of molecular biology, but its penetration into other sciences. In the last 30 years, nearly every branch of the life sciences has ìgone molecularî; fields from embryology to ecology have incorporated molecular techniques in the reductionist drive toward identifying the smallest units of natural change. In this session, we will consider the intellectual, technical, and social consequences of this pattern. Lindley Darden examines how study of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, traditionally associated with the early 19th century naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and widely discredited near the beginning of this century, again became serious science through molecular techniques in the study of directed mutation. Martha Keyes examines the problem of the ìviralî disease scrapie and why a theory of infectious proteins became so controversial. Both Keyes and Darden touch on the constraints on biological theory imposed by the ìCentral Dogmaî of genetic information flow, and on the evolution and broadening of that theory to incorporate new molecular data. Greg Morgan picks up the evolutionary theme in his paper on the development of the molecular clock as a technique for measuring the rate of evolution. Robert Olby looks at neuroscience going molecular; his comparison of research on ìmemory moleculesî in the 1950s with that in the 1980s and 1990s illustrates that molecular biology has been used as a wedge to distance ìmodernî science from discredited earlier research ñ even when clear conceptual and historical links exist between them. Nathaniel C. Comfort shows that ìgoing molecularî has also been used to link the past with the present in order to redress perceived deficiencies of credit. He re-examines the standard myth that classical cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock was ìrediscoveredî when molecular biologists in the 1970s identified and cloned transposable elements, which she discovered in corn in the 1940s. The papers in this session are linked by themes including the explanatory power of molecular biologyís ìcentral dogmaî; the use of molecular techniques to revise the internal history of a discipline; and interdisciplinary connections among different branches of the life sciences. Molecularization of the life sciences has had a profound impact on late 20th century biology; in this session we hope to illustrate some examples of that impact and raise questions of how historians, philosophers, and sociologists might come to grips with the ruthless reductionism and interdisciplinary synthesis implied by ìgoing molecular.î Organizers: Nathaniel C. Comfort and Lindley Darden (
Session Two:
Martha Keyes, Independent Scholar, ìThe Prion Challenge To The Central Dogma Of Molecular Biology, 1965-1991î
Since the late 1930s, scientists studying the neurological disease scrapie had assumed that the infectious agent was a virus. By the mid 1960s, however, several unconventional properties arose that were difficult to reconcile with the standard viral model of infection. Evidence for nucleic acid within the pathogen was lacking, and some researchers considered the possibility that the infectious agent consisted solely of protein. In 1982, Stanley Prusiner coined the term ëprioní to emphasize the agentís proteinaceous nature. This infectious protein hypothesis was denounced by many scientists as ìheretical.î This thesis asks why the concept of an infectious protein was considered controversial. Some biologists justified their evaluation of this unprecedented hypothesis on the grounds that a protein-only model of infection contradicted the ìcentral dogma of molecular biology.î Others referred to more vague theoretical constraints such as molecular biologyís ìtheoretical structureî or ìframework.î Examination of the objections raised by researchers reveals exactly what generalizations were being challenged by this protein model of infection. This survey of scrapie research reaches several conclusions: (1) A theoretical framework is present in molecular biology, which exerts its influence in hypothesis formation and evaluation; (2) This framework consists of several related, yet separable generalizations or ìelements,î including Francis Crickís 1958 Central Dogma and Sequence Hypothesis, plus notions concerning infection, replication, protein synthesis, and protein folding; (3) The term `central dogma,í has stretched beyond Crickís original definition to encompass at least two other ìframework elementsî: replication and protein synthesis; and (4) From the study of scrapie and related diseases, biological information has been delineated into at least two classes: sequential and conformational.
Nathaniel C. Comfort, SUNY Stony Brook, ìFrom ëControlling Elementsí To ëTransposonsí: McClintock's Transposable Genetic Elements Go Molecularî
According to legend, geneticist Barbara McClintockís pioneering work on transposable genetic elements was ignored for 30 years. Why did it take so long? In the scientific community, the standard answer is that the generality of McClintockís movable genetic elements, discovered in the 1940s, only became appreciated when they were identified in organisms other than corn, and when they were cloned and analyzed by molecular techniques. This paper will explore the ìrediscoveryî of transposable elements in the 1970s. Some aspects of this process include: the renaming of what McClintock called ìcontrolling elementsî to the more neutral (and bacterial-sounding) ìtransposonsî; reframing the elements in terms of standard models of nuclear gene action and their consequent removal from McClintockís frame of developmental biology; and the conversion of a novel genetic mechanism into a standard tool, useful in pursuing further explorations of new genes. In the process, the substantial speculative ñ even ìmystical,î to some ñ component of transposable elements was stripped away, leaving the solid empirical base that McClintockís colleagues felt they could believe. After transposable elements went molecular, McClintock won a series of high honors in rapid order: in 1981 alone she won the Wolf Prize in Medicine, the Lasker Award, and a MacArthur ìgeniusî award. That year, a group of her colleagues conspired to nominate her for a Nobel Prize, which she won in 1983. ìGoing molecularî thus has a social component as well as an intellectual one.
Friday, July 18, 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
XXXVIII Connections Between Philosophy Of Biology And Philosophy Of Psychology. Organizer: Valerie Hardcastle (
Session Seven: The Intersection of Biology and Psychology
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford, "On the Continuities of Life and Mind"
What is the connection between theories of mind and theories of life? By "theories of life" I mean theories of the distinction between living and inanimate matter. In attempting to explain the place of mind in the physical world, should we give a theory of life along the way? I look at this issue, and also at a particular family of theories of life -- which I call "strong continuity" theories -- which hold that even the simplest types of life have elements of mentality, or "proto-cognition."
Rob Wilson, Illinois-Urbana-Champagne, "The Individual in Biology and Psychology"
A position usually referred to as "individualism" or "internalism" has been the focus of much discussion in the philosophy of psychology over the last 20 years. Individualism in psychology is the view, roughly, that psychological properties supervene on the intrinsic, physical properties of individuals, and in effect it makes the individual the largest fundamental explanatory unit in psychology. In biology and the philosophy of biology, while individual organisms have often been seen as bearers of biological properties, other types of individuals have been viewed as more fundamental, both ontologically and explanatorily. For example, not only individual organisms but also genes are putative units of selection; and species have been claimed to be individuals, rather than natural kinds. In this paper I shall explore the types of individuals posited in both psychology and biology, and the roles that are ascribed to them. One theme will be that philosophers of biology and psychology have sometimes adopted views that require deeper metaphysical excursions than those philosophers of science have realized.
Kim Sterelny, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, "Communication, Function and the Extended Phenotype."
When animals communicated with one another ˜ when, for example, chickens, ground squirrels or the notorious vervets give warning calls ˜ what do those calls mean, if anything? What is their function? Interpreting nonhuman communication is notoriously difficult. Differences in view are not minor: some ethologists, for example, have argued that calls are not about features of the environment at all, but are about the affective state of the caller. They mean "I am excited", "I am scared", and so forth. Others (most famously Cheney and Seyfarth) have argued that animal calls are sometimes 'referential': that is, they are about features of the animal's environment. In a series of influential papers, Krebs and Dawkins outline a view of communication which seems to imply that animal signals have no meaning at all. For they emphasize the function of communication as behavioural manipulation, not information flow. Signaling is an attempt at mind control, hijacking the receiver's body by invading through its sensory and neural mechanisms. On this view, when one animal communicates successfully with another, the receiver's subsequent behaviour is an aspect of the "extended phenotype" of the signaling genes. Genes have an extended phenotype when their adaptive effect takes place outside the body in which they replicate. This conception of communication undercuts the idea that animal signals are in any sense meaningful. To see this, consider one of Dawkins' vivid examples of the extended phenotype. The Bruce Effect is the effect by which a male mouse releases pheromones which cause females to abort. The male-produced pheromone acts on the female's physiology for his benefit, not hers. We do not think of that pheromone as a signal carrying information. But on the Krebs/Dawkins analysis of communication, much communication is like the Bruce Effect. Genes in the signaler reach out and into the body of the receiver, and drive behaviour for the signaling gene's benefit. The gene's tools are sounds, colours, and gestures. The holes in the receiver's defenses are in their sensory mechanism not their physiology. But if the male mouse pheromone does not mean "abort" equally, nor does a displaying male Sage Grouse's strut and call mean "mate with me". Of course, signal receivers need not be passive victims. A group of desperately strutting grouse might be victims of female genes. The strutting male (especially an unsuccessful one) might be expressing the extended phenotype of female genes whose interests are served by his advertisement of his own deficiencies. The signaling males have already been manipulated by those to whom they signal. This paper, then, investigates the ways in which the signal meaning problem, and the associated problem of animal mental representation, is transformed by contemporary views about the units of replication and interaction in evolution.
XXXIX Animal Issues: Studies Into Animals, Animal Sciences And Philosophy Of Animals. The goal is to create some continuity between the lectures, participants and discussions of these sessions. Possible issues of these sessions can be: history of animal sciences, animal subjectivity, animal ethics, animal politics, cultural views on animals, and human-animal relationships. Organizers: Chip Burkhardt (
Session Five: The Animal Mind
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, "Consciousness: a Natural History."
Thomas Nagel, in a review of John Searle's book "The discovery of the mind", states that "we are still unable to form a conception of how consciousness arises in matter". The missing conception is, of course, really a missing answer. How does consciousness arise in matter?
This paper outlines basic reasons for thinking the question spurious. It does so by showing that the Socratic imperative "Know thyself" is a biological imperative, and in turn by demonstrating how genuine understandings of consciousness demand close and serious study of evolution as a history of animate form.
Eddy Nahmias, Duke University, "A Problematic Proposal for the Evolution of Consciousness"
Reciprocal altruism selects for increasingly complex deception and detection of deception. These behaviors, in turn, lead to increasing levels of theory of mind (desire to belief to false-belief-theory of mind).
I discuss some of the assumptions required to give such an evolutionary account (e.g. Brandon). I then discuss reciprocal altruism and why it might lead to deception, giving some evidence for deception in primates, especially apes. Then I describe theory of mind, give evidence for it from work with apes and human children, and describe how it advances deception. I end with some possible implications of the proposal.
XL Developmental Systems Theory (DST), Organizers: Susan Oyama, Paul Griffiths, Ron Amundson, and Lenny Moss
Session Three: Conceptualising Developmental Processes
Peter J. Taylor: "When The Developing 'System' Is Not Coherent Or Well Bounded: Socio-Environmental Changes And 'Intersecting Processes'"
No Abstract
Susan Oyama: "What Do You Do When All The Good Words Are Taken?"
Any theorist attempting to articulate a developing position with other traditions in a way that recognizes important differences and commonalities is apt to feel immobilized from time to time by the very conceptual and historical baggage that makes the 'good words' good--that is, by the rich connectivity that enables these terms to convey/imply/elide/bridge etc. in a more or less productive way. I briefly consider two terms, 'interaction' and 'system,' that have been important in linking and distinguishing a variety of approaches, including that of developmental systems. Each term is considered mainly in the context of a single paper. The aim is not to offer a general solution to the problem stated in my title, but rather to make note of several ways in which the ambiguity of the words contributes to interesting complications in the negotiations among scientific positions.
XLI Museums and Laboratories
Christiane Groeben, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, "Marine Organisms Preserved in Alcool, on Paper, in Glass: The Spread of Knowledge on Marine Organisms through the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrnî"
When in 1872 Anton Dohrn founded a Zoological Station at Naples he was aware of the lack of accurate, comprehensive information about the inhabitants of the sea. One of Dohrnís first priorities, therefore, was to assemble a reference collection for staff members and guest investigators. There was also a growing need for reference material for institutes, museums and laboratories without direct access to the sea. Consequently, the selling of collections of well preserved organisms became a profitable business for the Zoological Station. Dohrn was also acutely aware of the need for better descriptions of marine organisms and more professional illustrations of sea life. This prompted him to start a series of monographs Fauna and Flora of the Gulf of Naples, for which he hired artists who brought the art of scientific illustration to rare perfection.
A third way of spreading knowledge addressed the broader public: around 1860 two German artists started to create marine invertebrates in glass. Museums and private individuals worldwide acquired these small works of art. In 1877 the Blaschkas ordered a reference collection of more than 83 species from Naples.
Heidrun Ludwig Hessisches Landesmuseum , Germany, "Imitation and Mimesis in 18th Century Natural History Painting"
Today, natural history paintings are seen either as illustrations or as merely pretty pictures. Art theory, however, has differentiated the artists approach to nature. Renaissance and Baroque art theory on imitation makes a distinction between "Aemulation" (copying a motif), "Superatio" (applying artistic knowledge and experience to superelevate a motif), and "Mimesis" (recreating a motif in order to deceive the eyes and the senses). These artistic approaches and their diverse aims will be illustrated by natural history paintings originating in Nuremberg around 1750.
XLII A Re-evaluation of W. M. Wheeler (1865-1937) and his Legacy in Biology and Philosophy. Session organizers: Surindar Paracer, Worcester State College (email:
Surindar Paracer, Department of Biology, Worcester State College, "Wheeler's Concept of Symbiosis, Parasitism, and Evolution"
This paper will examine Wheeler's classification of inter-organismic associations, with particular reference to specialization and cooperation, and their role in the evolutionary process. This examination will include Wheeler's complex attitude towards natural selection as a factor in evolution, and his views on the relationship between competition and cooperation in the evolutionary process.
David Blitz, Central Connecticut State University, "Wheeler's Concepts of Emergence, Holism, and Superorganisms"
This paper will examine the role that the philosophical concepts of emergence and holism played in Wheeler's analysis of the biological basis for social organization, based on both Wheeler's published papers and archival material from his course at Harvard, Sociology I (intended mainly for biology students), which was offered in the early 1930s. This paper will include comparisons between Wheeler's concept of superorganism, and those of E. O. Wilson and J. Lovelock, and a discussion of Wheeler's relation to the "emergent evolution" movement associated with the comparative psychologist C. L. Morgan.
XLIII Selection And Self-Organisation In The Neurosciences
B. Feltz, Centre de philosophie des sciences, Catholic University of Louvain, "Neuronal Selection And Downward Causation, An Epistemological Analysis."
In the Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, the selectionist explanation plays a central role. First, I will propose a synthetic presentation of Edelman's scientific conception, with a specific attention to the selective logic. Second, I will analyse the philosophical consequences of such a theory. First, I will refer to philosophical approach of Edelman himself. Second, I will analyse the impact of this theory on questions such the relation structure/function, the inneism, the idiosyncrasy, the reduction of psychology to biology, and the reduction of biology to physics. The epistemological status of Edelman's contribution will finally be analysed.
T. Dedeurwaerdere, National Foundation for Scientific Research, Belgium and Catholic University of Louvain, "Neural Networks And The Brain : Associative Learning And/Or Self-Organisation ?"
A convincing and influential claim on introducing populational thinking in neural network models of the brain is made by G. Edelman in his theory of neural group selection. Experimental evidence suggests that modification of synaptic strength does not depend on co-activation of two connected neurons, as is assumed in most theoretical work since the proposals of Hebb (1949). Instead, through independent post- and pre-synaptic modifications multiple modifications occur simultaneously at various sites in the nervous system. Next, after repeated interaction with the environment, some activated populations will be reinforced and "selected" on behalf of the others. Edelman's theory is an extension of self-organizing PDP approach to populational thinking. However, as in the PDP approach, the selection rules he proposes only account for dynamical evolution of the system towards point attractors. The learning strategy of his networks is therefore a purely bottom-up strategy, a refinement of the classical scheme of operant conditioning of animals (Neural Darwinism, p. 297). Experiments on visual perception seem to indicate that even low level visual processes can converge to more than one attractor (ambiguous figures, binocular rivalry), to limit cycles (oscillatory behaviour) or low-dimensional chaotic attractors (visible for example through non-linear analysis of EEG-signals). I argue to extend Edelman's epigenetic account of perceptual categorization to dynamical attractors and to include the multiplicity of forms created by the autonomous, non-linear brain dynamics as a complementary source of variation on which selection can act.
Saturday, July 19, 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
XLIVEvolutionary Psychology
Paul Sheldon Davies, William and Mary "The Role Of Evolutionary Theory In The Study Of The Mind"
Evolutionary theory -- primarily the theory of evolution by natural selection -- holds great promise for inquiry into the nature of the mind. Or so it is claimed. The promise comes in at least two forms. (i) Evolutionary Psychology: In cognitive psychology, an appeal to the theory of evolution by natural selection is supposed to facilitate the discovery of the information-processing architecture of our cognitive capacities. (ii) Teleosemantics: In philosophy of mind, an appeal to the theory of evolution by natural selection is supposed to underwrite a theory of evolutionary functions, which in turn is supposed to underwrite a theory of representational content. The thesis of this paper is that both (i) and (ii) fail on methodological grounds. Specifically, while both research programs require a knowledge of certain facts concerning our natural selective history, the acquisition of such historical knowledge presupposes that we already know what it is we are seeking to discover. The theory of evolution by natural selection, therefore, cannot play the roles for which it is cast by (i) or (ii).
William A. Rottschaefer, Department of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR 97219, "The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency" .
An adequate account of moral agency answers the questions: (1) what counts as moral agency, (2) how is it acquired and maintained, (3) how is it put to work, and (4) how is its practice justified. Naturalistic accounts of moral agency make it a phenomenon of this world, and scientific naturalistic accounts make significant use of the sciences in understanding it. Although both the social and natural sciences are in-principle capable of such input, psychology and biology currently provide the best well-supported examples of it. After presenting the outline of a four-level model of moral agency, I illustrate how it can receive scientific support in answering the questions of acquisition, action, and justification by sketching developmental psychologist Martin Hoffman's theory of empathy and connecting it with a sociobiological explanation of the selection for altruistic capacities, capacities considered to be an important component of moral agency.
Sherrie Lyons, Daemen College, "Science or Pseudo Science: Phrenology as a Cautionary Tale for Evolutionary Psychology"
Phrenology is often cited as a classic example of pseudo science with it's practitioners dismissed as quacks. Yet historians and philosophers of science have pointed out that the distinction of what in the midst of discovery constitutes science and what does not is not clear-cut. Nevertheless, their analysis for the most part is applied only to historical cases or modern day investigations which have already been labeled marginal such as parapsychology. This paper takes seriously the problematic nature of the pseudo-science/science distinction by comparing and contrasting phrenology with evolutionary psychology.
Phrenology, like Darwinism represented a line of inquiry that contributed to the separation of psychology from philosophy and the breakdown of the mind/brain distinction. According to phrenology the brain was localized for particular functions and this in turn reflected a belief that anatomical and physiological characteristics can directly influence mental behavior. Both of these ideas remain the basis for our modern day understanding of mental phenomena. The claims of phrenology very quickly went far beyond the evidence, but phrenologists believed that human personality was much more than the sum of the component cerebral organs. By understanding cerebral function, phrenologists believed their work would show the uniqueness of each human being. Similar claims are being made by evolutionary psychologists, bolstered by the human genome project which promises to locate mental attributes in our genes. But when we read about genes for criminality or for alcoholism, one can't help wondering how different is this from the phrenologists claim that distinct organs in the brain were responsible for traits such as secretiveness, destructiveness, and spirituality. One hundred years from now will the claims of the evolutionary psychologists be regarded as the phrenology of the 20th century?
XLV Emergent Biology, Organizer: John Collier, Newcastle (email:
Biological systems are both organised and complex. The intersection of these concepts allows four types of systems. Type 1 systems are simple and show no special order. Single particle systems and systems of non-interacting particles are an exemplar. Type 2 systems are organised but not complex. Machines are good exemplars of this class. Type 3 systems are complex, but not organised, exemplified by a gas at equilibrium. Type 4 systems are both complex and organised. Such systems have global properties that cannot be fully understood as a simple sum of their parts. They are also not at equilibrium, and are capable of self-organisation and other forms of complex behaviour. The papers in one part of this session will deal primarily with empirical models, metaphors and applications, while the papers in the second part will deal with problems in the theory of complex and emergent systems as applied to biology. There will also be a discussion session in which audience participation will be encouraged.
Session One: Models, Metaphors and Methods I
John Collier, University of Newcastle (email:
Most discussions of traits attribute them either to nature or nurture, that is, either to genetic inheritance or environmental conditions. If emergence is a factor in ontogeny, however, then some traits are produced by self-organising dynamics, and are determined neither by nature nor nurture, nor by any simple combination of the two alone. In particular, self-organisation can permit individual variation that cannot be attributed directly to either genetic or environmental causes. Some examples are given, and the significance for self-organisation in some standard nature/nurture debates is discussed.
Mishtu Banerjee, Scientificals Consulting (email:
Tools for character analysis and phylogenetic tree construction are developed in a dynamical systems framework. Species are represented as evolving fuzzy sets. Character states define memberships functions. Descent with modification is represented as changes in membership functions for fuzzy sets. Kosko's "Sets as Points" geometry is used to define the phase space for a group of species. Synapomorphies, autapomorphies, pleismorphies and homoplasies are geometrically defined within the phase space. Algorithms are defined to calculate trajectories within the phase space. The resulting trajectories are compared to phylogenetic trees. The Entropy-Subsethood Theorem is used to calculate entropies for trajectories. Parsimony criteria for phylogenetic trees construction are compared to minimum entropy criteria for trajectories in the sets as points phase space. Model and data limits are discussed.
Kathleen A. Robson, Robson Botanical Consultants (email:
Perennial plants offer an excellent biological system for exploring the relationships between homologous parts of individual organisms and the more inclusive levels of organization, populations and species, where the individuals become the parts of larger wholes. In the next more inclusive set of this hierarchy species become the parts that make up the greater wholes of groups that share a phylogenetic history. A plant example is offered where ontogenetic events can be followed through time and compared for different levels of biological organization at different stages of growth, and over different years. The three species examined here are Balsamorhiza sagittata, B. careyana and B. deltoidea, members of the Sunflower family (Asteraceae). These three species form a distinctive clade within the genus recognized as section Artorhiza. Each spring these rosette-forming, taprooted perennials produce new sets of above-ground parts when the undifferentiated dormant buds become active, rapidly dividing and elongating to produce the leaves and flowering shoots of the season. A vigorous, mature balsamroot can produce 40 flowering shoots, providing a large within-individual sample. This plant example offers an empirical approach to the description of a small part of the interconnected levels of biological organization and the emergent properties that may be manifested by each through the structural expressions of morphogenesis.
XLVI Sessions In Honor Of Frederick B. Churchill. Organizers: Ronald Rainger, Texas Tech University, and Judy Johns Schloegel, Indiana University.
The students and colleagues of Frederick B. Churchill have organized four sessions in honor of his sixty-fifth birthday in December, 1997. Contributors will examine his scholarly influence in diverse areas of the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century biology, his historiographical approach to history and history of biology, and his influence as a teacher and mentor. Sessions will focus on the history of sexuality, methods and traditions in descriptive and experimental biology, evolution and ethics, and public domains of biology and the history of biology. Contributors will address issues in German, French, British and American biology, and sessions will collectively explore aspects of the private and public worlds of biology.
Session 1: Sex and Passion in the Private Worlds of Biology
Perhaps most influential among Frederick Churchillís contributions to the history of biology has been the attention he has drawn to the abundant study during the nineteenth century of non-bisexual means of reproduction . In addition, his own naturalist-like proclivities have repeatedly focused historical interest upon the impact of the study of specific organisms on biological theories, such as those about sex and reproduction. Inspired by these writings and qualities, the papers in this session explore the private domain of biology in relation to notions of individuality, sexuality, and investigative passion for organisms in biological theory and practice.
Anne Mylott, Indiana University, "Sex and the Single Pollen Cell"
I will shed light on the history of cell theory by examining how one of its founders, Matthias Schleiden, brought botanical ideas about individuality and generation into his thinking about cells. Schleiden developed his cell theory in the late 1830s, while investigating fertilization in flowering plants (work which led others to alternation of generations). Metamorphosis and development informed Schleidenís account of the cell, and his cell transformed long-standing approaches to individuality and fecundation. Schleiden integrated all those elements into a vision of the plant with multiple layers of individuality, rich homologies between cryptogams and phanerogams, and distinctively botanical, radically non-sexual, generative interactions between individuals.
Judy Johns Schloegel, Indiana University, "Sex and the Ciliate: Private Life and Social Behavior in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Microscopic Culture"
Among his many contributions to the history of biology, Frederick Churchill has drawn attention to two lively traditions that overlapped in significant ways - protozoology and the study of non-sexual forms of reproduction. Both were facilitated by improvements in microscopic technique during the mid-nineteenth century and were tied together by scientific and social concern about the purpose of sexuality. Ciliate protozoa, simultaneously sexual and asexual, provided a major locus for such investigations.
In this paper I examine the diverse interpretations of sexuality and conjugation in ciliates at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, focusing especially upon protozoologists Otto Bütschli, Emile Maupas, Max Hartmann, and Herbert Spencer Jennings. I argue that each of these researchers struggled to decouple a scientific conception of sexuality from its specific social connotations while simultaneously ascribing comprehensive meaning to the "private" acts they witnessed. I explore how the observational and experimental culture created by protozoologists nurtured this sensitivity to the intimate nature of the sexual relations under their gaze and, despite their diverse cultural milieus, fostered a common belief in a scientific role for subjective experience in the interpretation of biological phenomena.
Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University, "In Defense of Organisms"
Molecules and chemicals have dominated the research labs of 20th century biologists, while populations of varying genes and structures have enchanted geneticists and evolutionary biologists. Giant squid axons make a fascinating subject matter, as do egg and sperm or pollen cells -- for some questions. Oddly, as we adjust our biological focus on different levels from ecosystems to molecular structures, the organism stands out as especially interesting and yet as often ignored. So, I want to defend organisms.
Organisms are the most obvious units of life: of functioning, living, breathing, moving, growing, sensing, reproducing units of life. It is organisms that fascinate the Fred Churchills of this world, the wonderful enthusiastic naturalists who see the living world around them as an inspiring buzz of birds and bees and trees -- and biologists. The passion for living organisms -- including the biologists themselves -- motivates all the other questions and makes the hard work of research and writing worthwhile. This paper will explore that passion and the way it has played out in shaping biological thought and action for this century.
XLVII Nonequilibrium Models In Ecology: A New Paradigm? Ecological modeling strategies from roughly 1975-85 frequently operated under the assumption that underlying variation in ecological phenomena lay a balance of nature. Many systems are now investigated using non-equilibrium models. This major shift in the representation of nature deserves comment. Proposed papers include the history of modeling strategies, the use of non-equilibrium models in ecological science, and the philosophical implications of this development for ecology. Chair and Organizer: David G Castle (
Session One:
Sergio Sismondo, University of Guelph, "Shifting Equilibria In Island Biogeography"
MacArthur and Wilson's equilibrium model of island biogeography posits a balance between immigration and extinction rates, and thus treats species within a taxon as essentially identical. A more traditional notion of equilibrium saw nature balanced by particular species with particular characteristics. Thus we find prominent experimental studies of island biogeography employing shifting and inconsistent notions of equilibrium, so as to keep both pictures in play. Out of the conflict comes one line of dissatisfaction with island biogeography as a model.
Greg Mikkelson, University of Chicago, "Equilibrium Modelling: Is There An Alternative?"
Three questions can be asked about any ecological model, with regard to equilibrium. These have to do with the existence of an equilibrium; the strength and frequency of forces driving a system toward it, relative to likely countervailing forces; and the proportion of time spent at or near it. Ecological models that postulate relatively strong and frequent forces that keep a system at or near equilibrium can be thought of as "strongly equilibrial"; models that postulate only the existence of an equilibrium are then "weakly equilibrial". Although equilibria are by no means a prerequisite for successful scientific theorizing, even most so-called "non-equilibrium" models in ecology are probably at least weakly equilibrial. I explore why this should be the case, and weigh the merits of strongly versus weakly equilibrial models, with examples from community ecology.
Greg Cooper, Duke University, "On the Inevitability of a Balance in Nature"
One of the characteristics of theoretical ecology during its halcyon days (from, say, the mid-50's to the mid-80's) was a fairly strong tendency to see ecological phenomena as under the control density- dependent factors, and to see this density-dependent regulation as issuing in largely equilibrial situations. In part, this view was grounded not in any body of ecological evidence, but in a kind of a priori argument from first principles. With the emergence of the "new-nonequilibrium paradigm" one would expect to find that this a priori chain of reasoning has been abandoned. Surprisingly, it has not been abandoned, only transformed. This paper will (1) examine early arguments for density dependent population regulation, which trace back to the work of Nicholson, (2) discuss the ways in which the contemporary tendency to celebrate the contingency and historicity of ecological phenomena casts doubt on these early views, (3) explore more recent attempts to argue from first principles to the effect that most ecological populations are regulated by density-dependent factors for significant periods of time, and (4) discuss whether these more recent arguments address MacArthur's worry that an ecological world dominated by historical contingency is no place for theory.
XLVIII Models In Biotechnology Risk Assessment: Limits And Potentials. In this session the focus will be on the active role that our models of the biological world play in our general ability to make reliable prospective risk assessments. Competing models are often recognized and characterized in studies on risk assessment controversies. However, there is little explicit attention for methodological pitfalls that come with the choice of a useful model for the purpose of risk assessment and with the interpretation of experimental results as products of the applied model. Controversies about risk assessment may in some cases be less compelling than they look. If due attention is given to the specific usefulness and context-dependence of the underlying models upon which the controversial claims are erected, some controversies at least turn out to be artificial and spurious. Detailed research on the active role of models in risk assessment may help us recognize and discard misguided claims and thereby create room for more fruitful debates. Organizer: Ad van Dommelen (
Barbara Weber, Institute for Applied Ecology, Freiburg, Germany, "What Transposable Elements May Teach Us About Models For Risk Assessment Of Transgenic Plants"
In Germany a recent technology assessment of transgenic herbicide resistant plants resulted in controversial judgements concerning the possible risks of these plants. Advocates of the controversy claimed to argue on the grounds of the same so-called synergistic or contextualistic model of gene action. Plant transposable elements (transposons), mobile genetic elements, had a central role in this dispute. I investigate into the question where the understanding of the model differed allowing divergent conclusions on its grounds. Important questions in this context are: What kind of genetic alterations may be comparable to the activity of transposons? Was the model applied stringently? How were the available data interpreted? Which role were gaps of knowledge playing? Recent publications on (retro-)transposons of plants yielded new data and suggestions on their role in adaptation and evolution of plants. The possible relevance of these findings to the risks of genetic engineering of plants and the contextualistic models will be discussed.
Mathias Gutmann, European Academy for Technology Assessment, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, "Towards A Constructional Theory Of Modelling: The Methodological Role Of Models In Biology"
The aim of this presentation is to provide an operational concept of modelling. If models are supposed to be ideal representations of (formal) relations between natural entities, some well known methodological problems will result. For the application no criteria of adequacy can be defined and no instruction governing the correct interpretation of the model are given. Consequently, it is neither possible to discriminate between successful and unsuccessful application of a model, nor to determine its explanatory and predictive power. In contrast, models are characterized here as sets of instructions to define and constitute scientific objects. Following this constructivist approach, models are defined operationally and strictly context-dependent, because they are seen as tools used to introduce notions into a scientific theory. Principles of application and interpretation are given, the predictive and explanatory power of the application of models is determined and the role of modelling in science is defined in a methodological way. Applying this constructivist approach, a prominent model the "exotic species model" will be analysed. Its advantages in comparison with classical modelling of "GMO-invasiveness" will be pointed out. The impact of this analysis considering the problem of the adequate construction of taxonomies (so called "rational taxonomy") will be discussed. Finally, principles for the construction of those taxonomies are given.
Ad van Dommelen, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, "Useful Models For Biosafety Assessment: Are We Asking The Right Questions?"
To study risks of applied biotechnology we must look for useful ways to reduce the biological complexity that is at stake. The natural scientific tools to reduce such complexity are theoretical models. Therefore an important issue to address is: How useful are these models for their purpose of risk assessment? It does not suffice to deal with this issue by just assuming analogies to experiences with either "domesticated" or "introduced" species. Such intuitive analogies lack the required explicitness to function as useful scientific models and can therefore not be used as a reliable basis for biotechnology risk assessment. To defend claims about possible risks of applied biotechnology, we must be prepared to specify the underlying model(s) by answering the following questions: 1. Which biological variables must be included in the picture? 2. What are the relationships between those variables? 3. What are the dynamics of both the included variables and their relationships? Examples of this analytic approach to modelling are given in this paper by asking the specified questions in relation to claims about 'fitness', 'lateral genetic transfer', and 'pathogenicity'.
IL Evolutionary Naturalism And The Challenge of Cognitive Development And Sociality
Chair: William Wimsatt, University of Chicago.
Speakers: Werner Callebaut, Universiteit Maastricht and Konrad Lorenz Institut fur Evolutions- und Kognitionsforschung (email:
Commentators: Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stanford; Johan Braeckman, Ghent; Dan McShea, Duke (email:
A comprehensive and distinctly evolutionary naturalism flourished in Viennese philosophy of science around the turn of the century (Boltzmann, Mach) and beyond (Neurath a.o.), but then eclipsed under the laming spell of the linguistic turn.
When, in the 1970s, epistemologists cautiously began to probe the world that immediately surrounded the linguistic bastion, and started to flirt with naturalism again, it was Quine's severe, behaviorist brand of 'epistemology naturalized'--a variety of greedy reductionism, really-- that caught most of the attention. Fortunately, there were more worldly- wise developments as well. In the wake of Tom Kuhn's call for a theory of science that would come closer to the insides of scientists' skulls, labs, and journals, science studies burgeoned, allowing for the current coming of age of a radically naturalized epistemology that recovers the material, the experimental, the social, AND the normative (cf. Steve Fuller).
In parallel with the gradual replacement of physics by biology as the more strategic scientific discipline for society at large, the philosophy of (evolutionary) biology expanded dramatically in the last twenty years. Hasty and imperialist sociobiology gave way to more thoughtful varieties of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary approaches to sociality and culture. The organism Darwin had to black-box in order to get his theory of evolution by natural selection going was opened up again, and self-organization could become salonfaehig again.
It is at this juncture that our reflection sets in. It is our deep conviction that the contours of an encompassing evolutionary epistemology that is at once thoroughly naturalized, socialized, and culturalized, may at last become visible if we collectively succeed in imposing some order on the many promising ideas that have emerged in, but now lie scattered over,
- naturalistic and evolutionary epistemologies and philosophies of science,
- cognitive and social psychology,
- science and technology studies (including, importantly, the new
anthropological approaches),
- cognitive science,
- developmental and evolutionary biology, and
- various systems approaches.
We present a first rough draft of such a synthesis, taking as our points
of departure the essential embodiment of all knowledge (which makes Bradie's
"EEM/EET" distinction obsolete), and the need to understand cognitive
structures genetically in both the developmental and evolutionary senses.
The scientific study of the origin of human knowledge-- incorporating context, contingency, and construction--sheds new light on the role of development in evolutionary processes in general and in the evolution of human cognition in particular, and discovers hierarchical generative (ontogenetic and phylogenetic) processes of the coevolution and cooperation of cognition and social interaction. Psychological and epistemological considerations phrased along an interactive constructivism make understandable
(a) the act of creation in all progress of knowledge,
(b) the social nature of the objects, and
(c) the subject as taking an active part in building its own instruments of knowledge through endogenous construction.
This leads to the "developmental thesis" (Furth, Morgan) which offers a motivational basis for sociality by redefining knowledge as libidinal and social reality. The "sociality thesis", which proposes that the adaptive function of mind in nature is living in social groups, builds a conceptual framework for that societal construction. We encounter an acquisition of know-how that is neither innate nor acquired, but constructed within the organism's own coordination of actions. The intertwined processes of developing mind and instituting society explains the latter as the inherent content of the former, and the "social construction" of knowledge can no longer be understood as an exclusively externally driven operation.
Our ultimate aim is to promote a coevolutionary theory of the adaptation of the human mind to a social and cultural environment.
Our discussion reflects on the results of a workshop in theoretical biology to be held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research in Altenberg/Donau, Austria, 4-7 June, 1997.
LSpecies as Individuals
Session One:
Scott Merlino, University of California, Davis (email:
If biological species exist, what ontological sort of entity could they be? The conventions for delimiting and classifying species generate misleading and inconsistent results, and this is a consequence of a pervasive and persistent imprecision about species taxa. I compare and contrast two ontological solutions to this conceptual and empirical predicament. Michael Ghiselin and David Hull maintain that species taxa are individuals (SAI), i.e., spatiotemporally localized, cohesive, and historically continuous entities. I contend that SAI is literally false, or is uninformative, and that the argument for this view ultimately fails. I propose a Platonistic alternative, namely that species taxa are properties and that their instances are concrete particulars. Prima facie, the view I advocate sounds implausible, since it apparently places clearly concrete and ephemeral entities in the realm of the abstract and eternal. But this initial unease is due more to the way biologists speak about species than to what evolutionary theory requires. This revisionary view retains the theoretical virtues of SAI's seminal attempt to resolve certain metaphysical aspects of the species problem but avoids certain intractable modal defects. A property-based view also alleviates some of the perceived tension between the exigencies of evolutionary theory and the contingencies of the evolutionary process, and as a result, reconciles modern conceptions about classes and properties with contemporary accounts of species.
Jack Wilson, Washington & Lee University (email:
In this paper I argue that our current concept of biological individuality is dangerously muddled due to equivocal definition and the use of only a limited range of organisms as examples of individuality. The same concept that allows us to individuate physically discrete sexually reproducing animals is reduced to paradox when applied to the majority of living things which do not share the properties characteristic of metazoan animals. I explore this general problem through a particular case, the discovery of a huge clonal mass of the fungus Armillaria bulbosa near Crystal Falls, Michigan. The biologists who discovered it describe it as "among the oldest and largest organisms on earth." Their announcement sparked an interesting debate about the status of this fungal mass and the criteria for biological individuality. I explain what is at stake in this case and offer a new theory of individuation that can resolve the Michigan mushroom debate and many others like it. The answer is to revise the concept of an individual to recognize that living entities that have different subsets of the properties characteristic of our commonsense notion of individuality. These properties can be divided into distinct concepts that mark important and distinct biological kinds.
Saturday, July 19, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
LITools for Bridging Biology and Psychology
The purpose of this session is to introduce and explore the applications of a number of general epistemological "patterns"--metapatterns. Examples of metapatterns include such principles as borders, binaries, centers, layers, arrows, breaks, and cycles. But many more are possible. In the broadest sense, the metapatterns form a set of organizational shapes in space and time in the design of systems at many levels, particularly those in biology and psychology, because these realms are subject to the forges of evolution. Thus metapatterns exist because they are inherently functional. Using metapatterns, investigators have tools for looking at interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary issues. One major issue is the delivery of form into consciousness and culture via the patterns of nature, in other words, how nature's patterns have influenced the evolution of the human mind. Reference: Metapatterns Across Space, Time, And Mind by Tyler Volk, Columbia University Press, 1995. Organizer: Tyler Volk.
Tyler Volk, New York University (email:
The topic is the universality of functional patterns and the transference of such patterns from biology to psychology. The binary is a prominent example of such a pattern (which may be called a metapattern). Binaries, two-part functional systems, have been invented repeatedly by the evolutionary process in biology, from the two-part ribosome and the double helix on the molecular scale to those examples that would have been evident to our hominid ancestors, such as bilateral symmetry, the sexes, and the ecological coupling between plants and animals. The binary is likely ubiquitous and elemental because it is the system with the smallest number of parts that can cooperate to make a larger whole. As the human mind evolved, I postulate that there would have been functional efficacy for developing the binary as a basic psychological template. Because nature uses so many binaries, survival advantages would have accrued to the proto-cultures that developed the binary as one of the metapatterns used in the foundation for their mental systems at the dawn of thought, perhaps as far back as several million years ago. These systems were to form the basis for later cultural radiation through space and time into the vast variety of social, religious, and intellectual patterns of culture and the individual mind. The binary can still be seen as an important metapattern that helps lock in and make understandable complex features of culture, for example, the right and left of politics, rooted in its language and logic to the bilateral symmetry of the body.
Connie Barlow (
Time's arrow and time's cycle compose the standard binary of temporal possibilities. Evolutionary biology is typically associated with the arrow of time-owing to both the nonrepetitive birth and extinction of lineages and to a variety of trends sometimes perceived in the record. Geophysiology (global ecology), particularly according to Lovelock's homeostatic view of global climate and chemistry through time, is typically associated with the cycle-owing to the importance of matter cycles in the functioning of a closed biosphere. But as with the dots of opposition within the "tadpoles" of the yin-yang symbol, both sciences can now be seen to offer the complementary principle as well. Increased understanding of mass extinctions, particularly informed speculation that most if not all of the major mass extinctions were externally generated by comet and asteroid impacts, has stimulated an awareness of the repetitive nature of niche filling and refilling. Many earth scientists are now also interpreting Earth's climate history more as a developmental trend: cooling through time. Such understanding can be extended far beyond science into the realm of meaning, elucidating the great metaphysical binaries of the arrow and the cycle.
LII Emergent Biology, Organizer: John Collier, Newcastle (email:
Biological systems are both organised and complex. The intersection of these concepts allows four types of systems. Type 1 systems are simple and show no special order. Single particle systems and systems of non-interacting particles are an exemplar. Type 2 systems are organised but not complex. Machines are good exemplars of this class. Type 3 systems are complex, but not organised, exemplified by a gas at equilibrium. Type 4 systems are both complex and organised. Such systems have global properties that cannot be fully understood as a simple sum of their parts. They are also not at equilibrium, and are capable of self-organisation and other forms of complex behaviour. The papers in one part of this session will deal primarily with empirical models, metaphors and applications, while the papers in the second part will deal with problems in the theory of complex and emergent systems as applied to biology. There will also be a discussion session in which audience participation will be encouraged.
Session Two: Models, Metaphors and Methods II
Daniel R. Brooks, University of Toronto, "The Origin of Darwin's Necessary Misfit"
In order for natural selection to be a significance force in evolutionary change there must be a high degree of insensitivity between the properties of the members of a population and the properties of the environment in which the population finds itself. Darwin recognized that this was true, and emphasized that the properties of the living system should be considered paramount because there is so often a misfit between living systems and their environments. Current evolutionary research discounts the properties of the living system, using correlations between environmental and phenotypic variables as evidence of the action of environmental selection promoting adaptive changes on short temporal and small spatial scales. Misfits between phenotype and environment are not reported. And yet, even at the macroevolutionary level, there is manifest evidence that adaptive changes occur at rates much lower than the rates at which new species are formed. This produces not only organisms and populations, but entire species and clades exhibiting the same functional properties yet living in markedly different environments over long periods of time. The explanation for the bulk of contemporary biological diversity lies more in developmental and historical phenomena buried within the legacy of the lineage than in the details of the environments in which each resides. This conservatism also gives rise to Darwin's necessary misfit, ensuring that natural selection will be a persistent evolutionary mechanism operating on some portions of phenotypes.
Brian R. Moore and Daniel R. Brooks, University of Toronto, "Externalist and Internalist Perspectives on Patterns of Ecological Diversification"
Understanding the relationship between feeding ecology and biological diversity is a fundamental objective of ecology. Evolutionary ecologists concentrate on factors such as intraspecific competition for limited resources that maintain species abundance, assuming that what maintains species also explains their origins. Ecosystems ecologists refer to patterns of energy utilization, such as trophic pyramids, where the evolution of primary producers (plants) allows herbivores to evolve, in turn allowing faunivores to evolve. Both groups invoke explanations external to evolving lineages. Diversification in feeding modes in Paleozoic, Cenozoic and Recent terrestrial amniotes reveals that: (1) herbivorous clades are consistently more species rich than their faunivorous sister taxa; (2) mass extinctions tend to obliterate herbivores; (3) following mass extinctions, new herbivores always evolve from surviving faunivores; (4) the new herbivores are never descendants of lineages that gave rise to the previous epoch's herbivores; (5) despite the evident evolutionary payoff associated with herbivory, few lineages adopt this feeding mode following any given mass extinction. It appears more difficult to enter this feeding arena than would be expected if the process is driven by energetic considerations, but competition is also inadequate as an explanation: herbivore space is relatively uninhabited after each mass extinction, and many groups should adopt herbivory. Thus, factors external to the evolving lineages do not explain why so few produce herbivores. Rather, the evolution of herbivory among terrestrial amniotes is best explained by lineage-specific informational constraints. In order for any lineage to become herbivorous, it must evolve the ability to (1) acquire cellulolytic microbial endosymbionts, (2) provide an intestinal environment in which those microbes will survive and flourish, and (3) transfer those microbes from one generation to the next. It is the rare and stochastic evolution of all 3 abilities in any lineage that explains the evolution of terrestrial amniote herbivory.
Koichiro Matsuno, Nagaoka University of Technology (email:
Force defined by three Newtonian laws of motion becomes informational if both absolute space and time are replaced by local space and time. We demonstrated the informational aspect of force as referring to cell motility in general, or an actomyosin complex in particular. Force carries with itself dual roles, one is for movement of a material body, and the other for communication of the movement. If one employs absolute space and time, the communicative activity of force would forcibly be dismissed by that space-time framework. In contrast, an actomyosin complex we examined exhibits a communicative nature of the force generated during hydrolysis of ATP molecules. Information relevant to various biological phenomena depends upon what sort of space-time framework the participants may have. Information becomes ubiquitous once the space-time framework is taken to be local.
LIII Sessions In Honor Of Frederick B. Churchill. Organizers: Ronald Rainger, Texas Tech University, and Judy Johns Schloegel, Indiana University.
The students and colleagues of Frederick B. Churchill have organized four sessions in honor of his sixty-fifth birthday in December, 1997. Contributors will examine his scholarly influence in diverse areas of the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century biology, his historiographical approach to history and history of biology, and his influence as a teacher and mentor. Sessions will focus on the history of sexuality, methods and traditions in descriptive and experimental biology, evolution and ethics, and public domains of biology and the history of biology. Contributors will address issues in German, French, British and American biology, and sessions will collectively explore aspects of the private and public worlds of biology.
Session 2: Methods and Traditions in the Struggle for a New Biology
Frederick Churchill has been a key contributor to historical understanding of the rise of experimental biology at the end of the nineteenth century. These papers continue the historical discussion about the occasional commingling and frequent struggle between the descriptive and experimental research traditions in late-nineteenth and twentieth-century biology. They treat issues about technique and methodology, the relationships between empirical evidence and theoretical constructs, and the institutional and political processes underlying these traditions and the competition between them.
Nick Hopwood, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, "Modelling in Late Nineteenth-Century Embryology"
I am studying a line of work in embryology in the decades around 1900 that has been marginalized as merely ëdescriptiveí by historiansí preoccupation with the rise of experimental embryology. This work was organized around modelling, specifically the plastic reconstruction of embryos from serial sections, and the establishment of norms of development, most ambitiously in the Normal Tables edited by the Freiburg anatomist Franz Keibel. It was institutionalized under Franklin P. Mall in the Carnegie Institutionís Department of Embryology during the First World War.
In the talk I plan to focus on the practice of modelling in late nineteenth century embryology, and to begin by reinterpreting one aspect of the work of the man Keibel and Mall set up as the founder of this tradition, the Basel and Leipzig anatomist Wilhelm His (1831-1904). He is known to historians of biology for two superficially unrelated contributions: the invention in the late 1860s of a rapid, serial sectioning microtome, and the mechanical, physiological embryology that he began to deploy against Ernst Haeckel, the prophet of German Darwinism, at about the same time. (For the latter he has been given a cameo role as a ëprecursorí in histories of the experimental embryologists). I shall argue that the microtome and the physiological embryology were in fact linked by the practice of modelling, and go on to explore the production and use of wax models in embryological teaching and research.
Marsha Richmond, Wayne State University, "Revolt from Recapitulation: Adam Sedgwick and the Cambridge School of Zoology"
After the tragic death of Francis Maitland Balfour in July 1882, Adam Sedgwick (1854-1913) assumed direction of the vibrant Cambridge school of zoology that was distinguished by studies applying Balfour's recapitulationist approach to research in developmental biology.
By the mid-1890s, however, Sedgwick revolted from this program, attacking recapitulation, germ-layer doctrine, and the cell theory in a series of well-publicized articles. His long-time study of early embryogenesis in the primitive arthropod Peripatus, Sedgwick believed, indicated that the current theoretical edifice of biology, largely fashioned by Germans, "blinded men's eyes" to the actual processes of cell division and organismic development. Although opposed to biological orthodoxy, over the next few years Sedgwick's views gained a following among a significant group of young biologists in Britain and the United States.
In this paper, I will explore how Sedgwick, through the interaction between theory and observation, was led to oppose recapitulation, whereas August Weismann, as Fred Churchill has shown (Churchill 1985), believed his research just as strongly supported the biogenetic imperative. A cross-cultural comparison of the work of these two biologists may serve more generally to shed light on the question of how opposing traditions arise in biology.
Jonathan Harwood, University of Manchester, "The Transformation of Biology as a Political Process"
That historians of biology have devoted so much attention to the rise of experimental biology since the late 19th century is hardly surprising since experimental approaches have been highly productive. But how and why experimental biology triumphed remains unclear. To answer this question we would need to look at the methods, problems and solutions, not just of experimental biology, but of the older descriptive fields which it displaced in order to see why younger biologists gradually came to perceive these older fields as ëlosersí and shifted their allegiances. Unfortunately such a comparative exercise is practically impossible because, apart from ecology, we know so little about the history of field biology.
Moreover understanding the rise of experimental biology will also require a history of the relations between losers and winners. Every academic knows that curricular and structural change in the university is fundamentally political. Which side wins depends at least as much on the successful mobilization of allies as it does on intellectual merit. And it seems likely that a similar struggle was taking place earlier this century, between enthusiasts for experiment and the older generation of self-styled naturalists, over students, appointments, and funding.
LIV Nonequilibrium Models In Ecology: A New Paradigm? Ecological modeling strategies from roughly 1975-85 frequently operated under the assumption that underlying variation in ecological phenomena lay a balance of nature. Many systems are now investigated using non-equilibrium models. This major shift in the representation of nature deserves comment. Proposed papers include the history of modeling strategies, the use of non-equilibrium models in ecological science, and the philosophical implications of this development for ecology. Chair and Organizer: David G Castle (
Session Two:
Kim Cuddington, University of Guelph, "Support For Non-Equilibrium Approaches To Ecological Theory Provided By The Equilibrium Paradigm"
Theoretical ecological models within the equilibrium paradigm have focused on simple, continuous systems with only two species (e.g. Lotka-Volterra equations). Such simple systems are only capable of displaying two types of asymptotic behaviour: limit cycles and stable equilibrium. Further, the transient behaviour of these systems during their approach to a solution is of short duration. However, work by scientists within the equilibrium paradigm (McCann & Yodzis 1994, Klebanoff & Hastings 1994) suggests that equilibrium behaviour may be rare in natural populations. Models of very simple food webs have been shown to display solutions with chaotic attractors (Gilpin 1979, Hastings & Powell 1991). More recent work suggests that the transients for simple, three species food chains may be very long (3000 years). Such long transients and sensitive dependence on initial conditions make discussion of the asymptotic behaviour of these solutions especially meaningless in an ecological context. These findings are particularly interesting since they are a logical consequence of models which do not incorporate any assumptions that lie outside the equilibrium paradigm (e.g. spatial structure or variable abiotic conditions). In effect, scientists using the models, assumptions and techniques of equilibrium theory have shown that the overemphasis of equilibrium solutions is a hindrance in understanding natural populations.
David Castle, University of Guelph, "Implications Of Non-Equilibrium Models For Conservation Biology."
I shall first argue that there are grounds for thinking that a new paradigm of model building has emerged in ecology. Various kinds of non-equilibrium models are now popular. What implications, if any, does this shift have for conservation biology? I shall argue that the defining features of equilibrium model stability such as persistence, resistance, and complexity have specific definitions dependent on their use in those models. Non-equilibrium models do not use these parameters the same way. So, if conservation biology is convicted to an equilibrium understanding of nature, it will fall out of step with current ecological modeling. This conclusion runs contrary to the common conviction that the practical requirements of conservation biology keep it ahead of theoretical ecology. I will conclude by indicating what I take to be the appropriate new goals of conservation biology.
LV Practices and Protocols. Organizers: Elihu Gerson and James R. Griesemer (
Scientists address particular problems by combining specific concepts, models and procedures. Such a specific combination is called a protocol. For example, the use of fruit fly breeding experiments to test, refine and extend Gregor Mendelís theory of heredity was an important protocol. A protocol is framed to deal with a family of research problems, not just a single narrow question. Protocols vary in scope. Some are relatively flexible, and can be used to address many different technical problems. Others are relatively specialized, and can deal effectively only with a narrow range of issues. Within the scope of a protocol, projects with similar designs address similar problems. Projects carried out under a common protocol use similar data collection and analysis procedures, whether these be specialized surgical techniques, statistical procedures, or field collection and preparation methods. A protocol develops and refines a family of related models. Debates among adherents of a protocol focus on narrow and highly technical issues. A protocolís adherents use similar concepts, background assumptions, and stylistic commitments, woven together in a rationale for doing what they are doing. This is supported by a folk history (how we got to be doing this). They also develop common attitudes toward other ways of doing things, and toward adherents of other protocols. The protocol tends to become defined as the ìrightî way to do science, and competing protocols are dismissed or attacked as incompetent. In short, protocols become the basis of specialized social worlds. New and different protocols led to new specialties, and reorganized old ones along different lines. Specialties also developed different relationships with host organizations and with their sponsors.
Elihu Gerson, Tremont Research Institute, and James Griesemer, Univ. of California, Davis, "Habits Which Alienate the Affections: Protocols and the Organization of Research."
Much recent research in history and philosophy of science has focused on "practice," but this notion has remained quite vague. We need a set of categories for describing the ordinary and conventional work of research in useful ways. We propose the notion of protocols as one such category.
A protocol is a system of procedures framed to deal with a family of related research problems. For example, the use of fruit fly breeding experiments to test, refine and extend Gregor Mendel's theory of heredity was an important protocol. Protocols vary in scope. Some are relatively flexible, and can be used to address many different technical problems. Others are relatively specialized, and can deal effectively only with a narrow range of issues. Projects carried out under a common protocol use similar data collection and analysis procedures, whether these be specialized surgical techniques, statistical procedures, or field collection and preparation methods.
Protocols are contrasted to the theories which the research is building, the concepts which it uses, and the research problems it attempts to solve. Hence, the notion of practice which we adopt here is quite narrow in one sense. In another sense, it is quite broad, for we include all the activities needed to carry out the research, whether or not they are normally considered scientific. For example, the janitorial services required to keep laboratories safe and sanitary are considered part of the necessary work, as are administrative tasks such as preparing budgets or submitting expense reports.
We discuss several kinds of protocol characteristics. These include (1) Husbandry, the system of skills, materials ad equipment needed to maintain stocks of a domesticated research organism; (2) Thematic imaging, the use of diagrams and other graphic devices to organize, interpret, and present research results; (3) Lashups, the physical and conceptual arrangements of instruments and equipment needed to carry out a study; (4) Troubleshooting, the work of detecting and removing failures in design or conduct of a protocol; and (5) Integrity or legitimacy, the procedures which maintain the adequacy and trustworthiness of results.
Michael Lynch and Ruth McNally, Brunel University (e-mail:
This is a study of the intertwined protocols used by police, forensic scientists, and other agents involved in collecting, transporting, and analyzing DNA evidence for criminal investigations. In the past decade, forensic scientists have employed single- and multi-locus probes, gel electrophoresis, Southern blotting, PCR and other molecular biological techniques to compare DNA profiles developed from crime scene evidence with profiles developed from suspect samples. The practical use of such techniques in criminal investigation involves an intertwining of police routines and scientific techniques. At least two orders of protocol are involved: the 'chains of custody' set up by police other agents who collect, store, and transport evidence, and the molecular biological procedures employed in forensic labs. By reconstructing the movements of samples in actual murder investigations, we have examined how the integrity and credibility of DNA evidence depends upon organizational routines for record keeping, certifying transactions, and entrusting the authority of selected practitioners. Adversary disputes in court cases provide insight into the fragility of links in these chains.
Jane Camerini, Wisconsin, Madison (email:
Can thematic mapping be understood as a protocol for visualizing biological distributions? Mapping the distribution of botanical and zoological groups gradually became a widespread technique in natural history in the first half of the nineteenth century. To understand how a set of conventions for picturing distributions became established, I propose to examine a handful of maps that were considered innovative in their time - the first world map of mammalian distributions, the first botanical map of France, a map of the altitudinal zonation of vegetation, and the earliest atlas of thematic maps. Why did geographers and naturalists turn to mapping, and how did they modify existing mapping conventions for their own purposes? By experimenting with mapping techniques, naturalists established a flexible protocol for organizing large but uneven quantities of information. By mid-century, distribution mapping became a valued reference and research tool not only because it organized unwieldy data, but it also allowed naturalists to see biologically significant connections and patterns that emerged from the process of mapping.
ïSociobiology and Social Organization
Osamu Sakura, Yokohama National University (email:
Since its first appearance on 1975, sociobiology has caused a lot of controversies in the USA. In contrast no fights were observed in Japan during the introduction and reception of sociobiological theories, although hostile and negative attitude is rather common among ecologist and evolutionists. Some of the reasons including popularity of anti-Darwinian theory and the authority of conservative "oldsters" would bring such situation. As the result, ecologists in Japan needed more than ten years to accept sociobiological framework. The case is very similar in Germany. Konrad Lorenz, a Nobel Prize laureate, showed strong opposite position against sociobiology and many of the students followed him. So that, it took a long time until accept sociobiology in Germany, as well in Japan. I discuss the similarities and differences found in the reception process of sociobiology among three nations and would present some perspectives to structures of production of scientific knowledges.
Ivan Chase, State University of New York at Stony Brook (email:
This talk is concerned with the nature of order in the social world: where it comes from, how the particular forms of social organization that we observe are actually produced, and on what basis we can compare patterns of social organization across groups and species. In an effort to begin developing a coherent view of the nature of this order, I consider three kinds of simple social organization: dominance hierarchies in fish and chickens, resource distribution through vacancy chains in humans and hermit crabs, and foraging "decisions" in ants. I use these cases to evaluate a variety of current approaches to social organization in sociobiology and the social sciences. I conclude that these approaches, which all assume individuals as the proper units of analysis and postulate factors within them -- their traits, strategies, or genetically or cognitively inspired behavioral programs -- as explaining their social behavior, are fundamentally inadequate for understanding even these simple kinds of social systems. Instead, I propose a new framework that sees social organization as emerging from micro-level interactions of group members among themselves or with particular aspects of the environment.
ïSpecies as Individuals
Session Two:
Maurizio Salvi, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, "Plasticity And Coherence In Living Beings: Organism As Organic Unity"
Philosophers who interrogate themselves on Self-Identity (SI) problems have focused their analyses by using theoretical tools. E. Nagel, B. Williams, R. Nozick, and D. Parfit exemplify this methodological way of clarifying what our existence means. As the same time, biologists define our SI by using different, reductionistic, tools. This phenomenon produced a host of mechanistic views: "Our identity is exhausted by our genotype" (J. Monod), or "in a whole of chemical-physical processes" (E. Nagel, F. Jacob). Modern biology is changing this paradigm, and a plethora of contemporary theories underline the importance of our historical meaning (Topobiology, DNA as "software", evolutionary mechanisms, etc.). I shall present a theory which contemplates the biological (and neurophysiological) meaning as well as the philosophical meaning of our SI. This theory bears on the critical acceptance of theoretical and pragmatically analyses of SI. In the first place, this boils down to a defense of the interdisciplinary approach to SI problems, and also to probing the reasons that induce us to accept a particular view on our Identity: Organism as Organic Unity. I shall use, comparatively, the philosophical and the biological sciences. To approach this goal, I shall analyze the limits of the philosophical approach to SI by analyzing the biological (and neurophysiological) peculiarities of living beings. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that we can consider our SI as a "unity/diversity" unified by a whole of biological properties R. R is the set of the unifying process that causally links the subelements (biological and psychological peculiarities) of an organism. R guarantees the coherent constitution and continuity of SI. This process underlines the concept of homeostasis and the relationship of the organism to its environment. In this sense, it is possible to define a hierarchical relationship among species by considering their biological and psychological degree of unification, and by extending the Organic Unity theory from the level of the single organism to the species level.
Moira Howes, University of Western Ontario, "Immunology and the Entity View of the Self"
There are remarkable similarities between the concepts of selfhood in philosophy and immunology. In this paper I will examine the conceptual metaphors of selfhood in immunology with three objectives in mind. First, I will ask whether views of immunological selfhood have been informed by the philosophical presuppositions that the self must be either unified or non-existent and that there is a rigid self/non-self distinction. Second, I will examine the extent to which such metaphors have been beneficial for immunology and to what extent they may now constitute a hindrance. Third, I will argue that some immunologists have developed ways of viewing selfhood that seriously challenge rigid self/non-self distinctions. Alfred Tauber's view that the immune self is not an entity, but rather a process, is an excellent example of the development of selfhood discussions in immunology away from the traditional self/non-self distinction. Tauber argues that immune selfhood, as a process, arises out of immune function; a functioning wherein what constitutes self and non-self is indeterminate. This contrasts sharply with the view that the immune self is a preformed, static entity, sharply distinct from non-self, and ready to defend against foreign invasion. I will argue, however, that Tauber's account still depends to some extent on entity views of selfhood, and I will suggest a more radical departure from traditional accounts is perhaps called for. Finally, I will suggest that immunological concepts of selfhood, such as Tauber's, could have considerable potential for a resolution of the selfhood debate in philosophy.
Saturday, July 19, 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
LVI Natural Kinds. Organizers: Henk Verhoog (
Session One: Natural Kinds And Ethics
Brian C. Goodwin, "Morphogenetic Fields and Natural Kinds"
Within the Darwinian theory of evolution species taxa are historical individuals, not natural kinds, as David Hull has made eminently clear. This is the conceptual position that is consistent with the evolutionary theory of descent with modification, and with the contemporary view that organisms are reducible to their genomes. However, there are difficulties with the latter view. Genomes essentially define the molecular composition of an organism, and this is not sufficient to determine form or morphology. The causes of organismic morphology are morphogenetic fields, whose properties are not reducible to genes and their products.
A scientific explanation of biological form requires a generative (causal) theory whose classes (types of form) are natural kinds. It thus becomes evident that current Darwinian theory cannot provide a causal theory of biological form. The question then arises whether there is a conceptual context which is consistent both with the theory of inheritance and natural selection and with a theory of biological form. It will be argued that there is indeed a dynamical perspective that accommodates both historical contingencies and causal explanations of organismic form whose classes are natural kinds. Furthermore, this realist perspective reestablishes a logical link between natural kinds and naturalistic ethics, with important consequences for our view of species and their manipulation.
Henk Verhoog, Leiden University "Natural Kinds, Essentialism and Ethics."
In a study about moral argumentation for or against genetic modification of animals we came across the argument that such modification is not allowed because it is 'unnatural', or is allowed because it occurs in nature as well. Looking at the concept of nature involved in such arguments we concluded that a naturalistic fallacy can only be avoided if the concept of nature is interpreted as 'the characteristic way of being of an animal of a certain kind'. With this conclusion we have to face the criticism, however, that speaking about the essential nature of an animal is impossible because Essentialism fails in biology. There are no natural kinds in biology (Dupre, Rosenberg). We got the impression that the view of natural kinds held by these authors, is derived from the discussion about natural kinds in physics and chemistry. If the concept of natural kinds is applicable in biology, the criteria for establishing natural kinds must be derived from the organic world, not from the inorganic world.
LVII Emergent Biology, Organizer: John Collier, Newcastle (email:
Biological systems are both organised and complex. The intersection of these concepts allows four types of systems. Type 1 systems are simple and show no special order. Single particle systems and systems of non-interacting particles are an exemplar. Type 2 systems are organised but not complex. Machines are good exemplars of this class. Type 3 systems are complex, but not organised, exemplified by a gas at equilibrium. Type 4 systems are both complex and organised. Such systems have global properties that cannot be fully understood as a simple sum of their parts. They are also not at equilibrium, and are capable of self-organisation and other forms of complex behaviour. The papers in one part of this session will deal primarily with empirical models, metaphors and applications, while the papers in the second part will deal with problems in the theory of complex and emergent systems as applied to biology. There will also be a discussion session in which audience participation will be encouraged.
Session Three: Theory and Metaphysics
Kevin G. Kirby, "Life Outside The System: Exaptability As A Foundation For Natural Information Processing"
Is it possible to escape from the language of systems theory when we discuss information processing, particularly information processing in "living systems"? Underlying the functionalism that research in artificial intelligence and artificial life seems to nudge us into, is the assumption that important facts about things such as cognition and evolution are best stated in the language of configurations, states, trajectories, inputs and outputs. Whether one takes Turing's digital tape machine or his morphogenesis "machine" as paradigmatic, one is still committed to this language. Indeed, today's most engaging metaphors from complexity studies use this vocabulary. In this paper I will investigate some areas where the view from systems theory is dark. Beyond that, I want to argue that much in life is not well explained by using an algorithmic framework (even with some added source of indeterminism). The simulation relation, by which one introduces a homomorphism from a formal system into some piece of the world, breaks down as we try to give good accounts of the emergence of new function in evolution. The appearance of evolutionary innovations, particularly of exaptations (the recruitment of an existing structure for a novel function) is fundamental, even as far down as the molecular level. What gives some things their evolvability (and perhaps what gives brains their consciousness) is the "exaptability" of matter. I examine the consonance and dissonance between these ideas and the concepts of emergence in chaotic systems.
S.N. Salthe, Natural Systems (email:
The question is whether natural selection can really be held responsible for the evolution of a complex phenotypic character -- e.g., eyes -- in neoDarwinian theories. The question can be posed as: is selection theory adequate to explaining improvement in the function of some trait? If not, what has the purpose of this discourse become?
At the molecular level (1) an increase in enzyme catalytic activity would not necessarily be amplified to better emergent visual acuity, and (2) given genic microheterogeneity, every individual might improve visual acuity on the basis of different molecular adjustments. Subsequent recombination as a result of mating would disrupt these adaptations in populations of sexual forms. How many ad hoc assumptions need to be added here?
At the organism level, (1) pleiotropy raises the question of what is a trait. Does an improvement in corneal form map to an improvement in vision, and does that map to an improvement in orientation? (2) Polygeny, epistasis and linkage lead to the question of what is a gene. Is it possible for a single base change to reliably represent an improvement in an emergent phenotypic function?
At the population level, Haldane showed that the improvement of three or more important traits simultaneously would create an intolerable cost of evolution for a population. Bruce Wallace and others solved this problem with the concept of soft selection. This, however, sacrificed the very possibility of talking about the evolutionary improvement of any given trait. This led in the direction of dealing with overall evolutionary systems, recently explored by Kauffman, which eschewed any discussion of the phenotypic improvement of individual traits.
Jack Maze, University of British Columbia (email:
Emergence, the unpredictability of higher level properties based on those of lower, occurred when levels compared were comprised of different sized groups of homologous structures. Four higher levels were independently studied, individual plants, populations, species and a species-pair. The greatest level of emergence was seen in the species-pair followed, in descending order, by individual plants, species and populations. Emergence argues for higher level phenomena and explanation requires both a means whereby it comes to pass (mechanism) and the reasons why it is expected (theory). A general mechanism may be lower level variation which allows the freedom necessary for higher level events to occur (Polanyi). The biological mechanism for variation is developmental for individuals or reproduction above the level of individuals. The mechanisms expressed at higher levels are problematic; the reductionist views prevalent in biology preclude a search for higher level mechanisms. Perhaps some kind of system closure is being seen, in the case of individuals this may result from the events that start life, in populations from reproductive ties and for species an unknown mechanism, but neither reproductive ties nor reproductive isolation. The relevant theory is likely the structural expression of increasing entropy (Brooks and Wiley).
Jesper Hoffmeyer (email:
Rather than seeing human intentionality as a unique and utterly unexplainable feature of human existence (modus Searle) or, reversely, as a seducing linguistic illusion (modus Dennet), semiotic materialism sees human intentionality as a highly evolved instantiation of a semiotic freedom which was latently present in our universe from the very beginning and which has been gradually unfolding in the course of organic evolution.
According to semiotic materialism our universe has a built-in tendency (originating in the lawfulness described by the 2nd law of thermodynamics) to produce organized systems with a capacity for semiotic interaction. The capacity for semiotic interaction is grounded in the organisation of the constituent material components of the system, and cannot exist without this grounding. But evolution has tended to create more and more sophisticated semiotic interactions which were less and less constrained by the laws of the material world from which they were ultimately derived.
The paper analyzes the emergence of autonomous agents with a capacity for semiotic interactions.
LVIII Sessions In Honor Of Frederick B. Churchill. Organizers: Ronald Rainger, Texas Tech University, and Judy Johns Schloegel, Indiana University.
The students and colleagues of Frederick B. Churchill have organized four sessions in honor of his sixty-fifth birthday in December, 1997. Contributors will examine his scholarly influence in diverse areas of the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century biology, his historiographical approach to history and history of biology, and his influence as a teacher and mentor. Sessions will focus on the history of sexuality, methods and traditions in descriptive and experimental biology, evolution and ethics, and public domains of biology and the history of biology. Contributors will address issues in German, French, British and American biology, and sessions will collectively explore aspects of the private and public worlds of biology.
Session 3: Evolution, Ethics, and the Social Worlds of Biology
Among the issues that Frederick Churchill has addressed, none has been more important than evolution. His own researches have ranged from a fascination with Darwin's understanding of evolution to work on August Weismann and more recently Julian Huxley. The papers in this session explore a number of questions pertaining to the philosophy of evolution and its social and cultural history, including analysis of Churchill's own perspectives on history and the history of life.
Alice D. Dreger, Michigan State University, "Casting a Fine Net, or, Darwinís and Churchillís Problems with Case Studies"
What is the task of the biologist and the historian? Are we to study the particulars for their own sake, or are we constantly to hope and to try to find the great laws of life among the small creatures? This paper looks at the histories of Charles Darwin and Fred Churchill and their struggles with the meaning of case studies. I survey Churchillís work (with emphasis on the 1982 essay, ìDarwin and the Historianî), and show Churchill to be, in some ways, more Darwinian than Darwin himself --more persuaded of the tentative, complex, indivisible nature of the history of life. Even in Darwinís atheistic universe there seemed to be the remnants of a minor god of sorts --lawlike patterns forming a grand framework. Yet while historians of science generally broke into a religious holy war with intellectual historians on one side and social historians on the other, Churchill remained largely agnostic or even atheistic, refusing to accept either strict Rationalism (nature) or strict Culturalism (nurture) as the vera causa of the history of life. Where Darwin abandoned his barnacles for universal visions, Churchill remained, asking implicitly the very troubling question: If we find in history enormous complexity, variation, and endless continua, how can we justifiably make simple life?
John Beatty, University of Minnesota, "A Framework for the History of Evolutionary Thought "
In this paper I extend Jonathan Hodgeís analysis of the Origin as ìone long argumentî devoted to establishing the ìcompetenceî and ìresponsibilityî of natural selection as an evolutionary agent. I develop and emphasize the idea of the ìrelative responsibilityî of alternative evolutionary agents as an important category of questions and controversies from the mid 19th century to the present. I apply the ìcompetenceî and ìrelative responsibilityî categories to a variety of positions and issues, including the debates surrounding ìneo-Darwinism,î ìneo-Lamarckism,î and the ìall sufficiency of natural selection,î in which Fred Churchillís intimate companion, August Weismann, played such a major role.
Paul Farber, Oregon State University, "Evolution and Ethics: The French Connection"
Jean de Lanessan developed an interesting ethics based on his conception of the living world. This paper explores his ideas in the context of comparing French evolutionary ethics with the Anglo-American tradition.
Lynn K. Nyhart, University of Wisconsin, "Living Environments at Work: Ecology and the Social Worlds of Karl Moebius"
A remarkable portion of what we know about Germany zoology in the last third of the nineteenth century can be traced to the careful work Fred Churchill has done and has inspired over the last thirty years. His work on August Weismann, in particular, has drawn attention to a host of issues pertaining to the problem-complex of generation, which encompassed the later-separated fields of evolution, development and reproduction. A central problem for Weismann and his contemporaries was the role of the environment in affecting the lifeways and evolution of animals. No one took up that issue with more fervor than Weismannís older contemporary, Karl Moebius (1825-1908). Known to history as a pioneer of ecology for his concept of the ìLebensgemeinschaftî or biotic community, Moebius was also responsible for such practical innovations as developing the first public aquarium in Germany and reconceptualizing natural history collections to emphasize living groups. In this paper, I seek to unite the theoretical and practical aspects of Moebiusí work by analyzing his ideas about ecology and the environment in the context of his multiple constituencies: professional scientists, fisheries reformers, and the museum-going public. In so doing, I hope to show how controversies over such intellectual issues as the role of the environment in evolution were shaped by the multiplicity of the social worlds within which late nineteenth-century zoologists operated.
LIX Behavioral Genetics: Historical, Methodological, and Social Issues. Organizer: Ken Schaffner, George Washington University.
This symposium examines philosophical, historical, and social issues raised by the science of behavioral genetics (BG), with a primary focus on human studies. The participants' views range across a spectrum from positive views of the discipline to strongly critical assessments, both on scientific and social grounds. Ed Manier presents an account of what he views as one of the strongest long- term studies of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language in the classical BG area conducted by Kagan and Plomin. He backgrounds that example with an account of an earlier BG animal study involving dogs. Ken addresses two very recent human studies of "genes for" novelty seeking and anxiety/neuroticism, and considers the pros and cons of the molecular methodology underlying this work. Gar Allen presents a strong criticism of the entire enterprise of BG, arguing that it misunderstands the nature of the gene-phenotype relation and that it is socially naive (and dangerous). Wim van der Steen provides another critical view, extending BG to psychiatric genetics and develops arguments against over reliance on a biological psychiatry approach. The four participants thus will conduct an in-depth debate over the methods and putative results of this controversial discipline. Detailed abstracts provided by each of the four speakers follow.
Session One:
Edward Manier, University of Notre Dame "The Dogs of Bar Harbor and the MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study"
The subject of human behavioral genetics is fraught with controversy so intense as to raise very fundamental questions about the conditions for the possibility of any behavioral genetics whatsoever. In this paper I would like to review the status of one past and one current research design in this territory. First, I will examine the findings and the fate of the work reported as " Genetics and the social behavior of the dog," by John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller , University of Chicago Press, 1965. Then I will discuss the MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study, a multivariate analysis of individual differences during the transition from infancy to early childhood. Since 1987, MALTS has worked with the best available measures of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language, comparing identical and fraternal twin correlations. Prominent child psychologist Jerome Kagan and pediatric geneticist Robert Plomin have contributed to MALTS. I will use these studies to assess objections which question the possibility of behavioral genetics in general, and human behavioral genetics in particular.
Kenneth F. Schaffner, George Washington University, "Methodological Assumptions Underlying Reports of Genes for Novelty Seeking and Anxiety: An Assessment and Critique"
Reports of behavioral genes in humans have trouble surviving critical replication studies. Perhaps the strongest successful example is a Novelty Seeking (NS) gene reported along with a replication in January 1996. Even this has not been confirmed in one published and one unpublished study, though a confirming replication is rumored (Hamer, personal communication). The method used in the NS study (a "candidate gene" approach) has been championed by several writers, including Risch and Goldman, and also has been employed in the recent research leading to a report of an anxiety/ neuroticism (AN) gene. This paper examines the soundness of the methodological assumptions underlying the NS and AN studies. It addresses in part the problem of the use of a "broad heritability" value (of 41% for NS) that was used to estimate the effect size of the D4DR NS gene, and the 40-60% heritability value range used in the AN study. Why there are special problems of replication involving complex traits is also considered using some of the arguments developed by Lander and his colleagues. The paper concludes with some speculations about rationales and agendas in both the classical and molecular approaches to this area.
ï Social and Cultural Studies of Biotechnology. This topic covers studies of biotech labs and firms, and the rapidly expanding uses of molecular biological technologies in medical, legal and commercial institutions. Examples of paper topics: the development of the national DNA data base in the UK; legal controversies in the US about the admissibility of DNA profile evidence; molecular biology and surveillance; the privatization of DNA and molecular biological research; and intellectual property issues and disputes. Organizer: Michael Lynch (
Session One:
Alan Stockdale, Stanford University, "Cures for Children with Nasty Diseases: The Promotion of Gene Therapy Research in the United States"
Over the last seven years human gene therapy research has become a routine practice. There are now a large number of biotechnology companies and medical schools engaged in numerous on-going clinical trials of gene therapies for a variety of diseases. This paper begins by examining the ways charitable foundations, biotechnology companies, and researchers have represented gene therapy research in order to promote and secure financial support for their research interests and then considers the relation of these representations to medical practices and illness experiences. Popular representations of gene therapy have tended to focus on classic single-gene genetic conditions, the suffering of children, the personalities of a number of prominent gene therapy researchers, and the search for cures. These representations are often misleading with regard to the diseases being investigated, the nature of the research, the potential to provide therapeutic benefit, and the demographics of afflicted populations. Popular representations of gene therapy are in some cases reinforced by medical practices; however, they are not always unequivocally perceived as positive by those who have to live with the diseases in question.
Ruth McNally, Brunel University, "The DNA Database in the UK: The First Two Years"
In April 1995 the forensic science services of England and Wales began to develop a DNA database for purposes of criminal investigation. This was the first national effort to build such a data base. Using a molecular biological technique called STR (Short Tandem Repeat), forensic labs develop profiles from DNA evidence collected at crime scenes, and from all persons convicted of "recordable" offenses. The data base enables police investigators to search for matches between DNA profiles from samples of blood, semen, hair, and saliva collected at crime scenes and the profiles of persons on the data base. Thousands of profiles were entered on to the data base within the first two years of its operation. This paper discusses some of the organizational, legal, practical, and ethical issues arising during the first two years that the data base has been operating. Issues include controversies about the use of mass DNA screening, debates about the certainty of identification, changes in police investigative practice, and changes in the rights of persons accused of crimes.
ïModels Systems
Robert Skipper Jr., University of Maryland, College Park (email:
Biologists and some philosophers advocate the use of population genetics models for explaining evolutionary phenomena (e.g., Futuyma 1986, Schaffner 1993). While such models are appropriately unificatory, they are merely descriptive and not explanatory. I propose that explanatory models of evolutionary theory be couched in causal terms (e.g., Darden and Cain 1989, Sober 1984) while retaining a unificatory aspect (e.g., Darden and Cain 1989, Kitcher 1989, Schaffner 1993). An unfortunate element of the extant causal models, however, is their ubiquitous reliance upon non-explanatory theoretical terms, for example, 'benefit' and 'suffer'. A mapping and elimination of such metaphors is presented for an explanatory model of the theory of natural selection.
Kevin Lattery; University of Minnesota, "Developing and Describing Empirical Regularities in a Diverse Biological World"
Biologists use particular model organisms or experimental systems to investigate the natural world. And despite what Jacques Monod once claimed, what is true for E. coli is not always true for the elephant. The biological world is enormously diverse as species have evolved numerous mechanisms, and it seems every biological generalization admits exceptions. This challenges traditional philosophical accounts that assumed universal laws were central to scientific knowledge, and raises a significant epistemological problem: how are we to understand the nature of biological knowledge when i) every biological generalization admits exceptions and ii) biologists attempt to make general claims in biology based upon specific experimental systems?
Philosophers have addressed part i) of the question above, replacing the universal laws of traditional positivist accounts with non-universal theoretical models or explanations. But part ii) has been largely neglected, and I argue that the use of experimental systems to make general claims demands abandoning our positivist heritage still further -- to understand the nature of such knowledge requires shifting from our emphasis on theories and explanations to our experimental interventions. Rather than laws, theoretical models, or explanatory reasoning patterns, my account structures biological knowledge around the activities of experimentalists and their use of experimental systems to connect biological entities and processes with one another. Theories and explanations are only provisional guidelines that must be understood in relation to their investigative context: experimentally establishing and developing empirical connections with specific experimental systems.
Carla Fehr, Duke University, "The Role Of Domain Partitioning In Explaining The Evolution Of Sexual Reproduction"
The evolution of sexual reproduction is a central area of concern for many disciplines in the biological sciences. The recent flurry of theoretical and experimental work on this topic has generated an astonishing plethora of explanations for the evolution of sex. This sort of pluralism, along with questions about the status of biological generalizations, are currently being considered by such philosophers of biology as John Beatty and Ken Waters. One strategy for working with this sort of pluralism is to partition the domain that a generalization applies to into several different domains. The domain of generalizations concerning the evolution of sex has been partitioned in questions about the origin and questions about the maintenance of sex. There are many other ways that this domain could be fruitfully partitioned. I will argue that several domains are needed to explain the evolution of sex, and that no one of these domains is more important that all the others.
Rachel Ankeny, University of Pittsburgh, "Changing Fads, Shifting Models: The Evolution of C. Elegans as a So-Called 'Model Organism'" [Schedule late in the meeting if possible]
This paper will examine the concept of a "model organism" against the background of an ongoing philosophical and historical study of the interdisciplinary research program on the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans begun at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge in the 1960s. It will be argued that an evolution occurred in the use of the term "model organism" as the research progressed, due to a variety of influences including the program's research findings and the continued inclusion of diverse disciplinary perspectives, as well as more externally based forces, such as funding sources and general conceptual shifts that occurred contemporaneously in the biomedical sciences. In conclusion, the conceptual, pragmatic, and rhetorical values of the term "model organism" will be critically assessed using this research program as a paradigmatic example.
ïSemiotics
Jon Umerez, University of the Basque Country (email: mail:
I will present an analysis on the use of informational-linguistic concepts in biology centered around the work of Howard Pattee and relating it with other approaches (more explicitly developmental). The aim would be twofold, one the one hand, trying to avoid possible misunderstandings of Pattee's position by means of using several of his very scattered papers, and, on the other hand, to argue for the utility of a conscious and very careful semantic (semiotic) approach to the understanding of living systems which pays attention to the origins. I would say that, for many years, Pattee has been working on a particularly rich understanding of living systems from a perspective which we could call "internally" interactionist, i.e., from within the organism itself. In doing so he has made a heavy use of explicitly linguistic (perhaps cognitive, but this is not so clear and should be discussed) terms and concepts to account for what he considers is the more specific feature of living systems identified as the cellular "semantic closure" arisen at the origin of life (Pattee, 1982). It is clear that this kind of terminology (information, program, code, etc.) has been largely abused in biology as, for instance, Oyama (1985) and others have shown in some detail. With respect to Pattee we find different reactions within this critical scope. These reactions range from Oyama's positive consideration of his aim but critical indictment of his linguistic terminology, to more confident assessments as in Fox Keller (1995) who is not worried by the cybernetic metaphors and relates his work to a rebirth of developmental biology. We even have radical developmental approaches like in Salthe (1993) inscribed in an explicitly semiotic frame but of a very different kind.
Therefore in this paper I will try to relate these critical approaches and, mainly, I will argue for an answer in the positive to Oyama's question "...whether these points are clarified or obscured by ever more elaborate metaphors..." (1985, p. 48).
Anders F. Jensen, Roskilde University, Denmark, "The Contemporary History of Biosemiotics"
In this paper I wish to present a historical analysis of central aspects of the development of biosemiotics. Biosemiotics are ambitious attempts to develop a conceptual approach to biology based on semiotics, in which biological relations - from the population to the subcellular levels - are analysed in terms of sign processes. The central topic of biosemiotics is the nature of biological information and codes, rather than material interaction and energetic circulation. The members of the "biosemiotic community" are drawn from the sciences biology, mathematics, medicine, anthropology and the humanities; their ambition is to "re-integrate the natural and human sciences in the higher synthesis proper to the doctrine of signs"* Their ecumenical ambitions stands in opposition to most mainstream scientific areas and practices in a number of ways; politically, philosophically and theoretically. I will primarily focus on the marginal position of biosemiotics in relation to mainstream biological disciplines, and will draw examples from studies of immunological recognition and network, complex regulation mechanisms and perception.
*Myrdene Andersen, John Deely, Martin Krampen, Joseph Ransdell, Thomas A. Sebeok and Thure von Uexkull; "A semiotic perspective on the sciences: steps towards a new paradigm". in: Semiotica 52-1/2 (1984), 7-47.
Saturday, July 19, 4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m.
LX Natural Kinds. Organizers: Henk Verhoog (
Session Two: Natural Kinds And Biology
Gunther J. Eble, The University of Chicago (e-mail:
Species and higher taxa are particles in space and time when viewed through the lenses of macroevolution. Beyond the debate on units of evolution as classes or individuals, taxa can arguably be viewed as natural kinds at the most basic level of recognition, that of statements of discreteness. Neontologists and paleontologists, syntheticists and neo-syntheticists all agree that discreteness is a fundamental attribute of any species or higher taxon. This is why a debate about natural kinds is very much a debate about the material basis of discontinuity. A shift in emphasis from functionalist to structuralist accounts of form and discontinuity is now apparent in light of the renewed awareness of the importance of developmental constraints in evolution. However, accompanying ahistorical definitions of structure and natural kind have relegated history to oblivion. If evolutionary time is to be fully taken into account by structuralism, "historical kinds" (reified through historical homologies) and biological homology must be ultimately reconcilable, and the potential existence of "historical universals" has to be considered in history itself, in the very interplay of the actual constraining subsequent pathways through the set of possible forms. There may be structure without history, but history is often non-random, having thus a potential rationality that is not necessarily reducible to structure per se.
D. J. Kornet, Leiden University, "Things, Kinds and Categories: Biology and Natural Kinds"
Natural kinds are stable configurations of matter (in the form of elementary particles) allowed by laws of nature: slots in an abstract multidimensional possible configuration space. Natural kinds are universal: they may or may not have an instantiation -- a slot may or may not be filled with actual historical entities. In our universe there are relatively few slots for chemical elements, most of which are filled. An element slot such as "gold" is filled with many (structurally identical) individual gold atoms. This is why chemical elements are paradigmatic natural kinds. From the essential property of gold, the atomic number (number of protons), we can infer the configuration of elementary particles of which a single gold atom consists.
Chemical compounds are a higher-level stable configuration of atoms, and cells a further configuration of compounds, and organisms of cells, and so on. Natural kinds yield a nested hierarchy of slots of increasing complexity. Laws of nature allow very many organism slots in configuration space (i.e., allow many ways in which a configuration of cells, ultimately of elementary particles, forms an organism), of which only a few are filled. A filled organism slot such as that of Charles Darwin typically contains only a single historical individual: the actual Charles Darwin. It is unlikely that a second historical individual that is structurally indistinguishable from Charles Darwin will arise -- i.e., it is unlikely that the slot will contain two or more historical individuals. A candidate for the essential property from which the configuration of elementary particles can be inferred of which Charles Darwin consists could be the unique chromosome structure. From ontogenetic studies we know however that such a strict form of genetic determinism does not hold and therefore must be supplemented.
Along the same lines, we could interpret species as all possible slots of stable supra-organismal complexes, configurations of matter, allowed by laws of nature. We can expect very many species slots, few of which are filled with actual species; each filled species slot will typically contain a single historical species. What could be the essential properties of such a species slot from which we could infer the further distribution of matter that makes up an actual species? It is not clear whether any such properties exist and therefore whether laws of nature actually allow any such species slots.
Since each biological natural kind is a single slot which, if filled, contains typically only one historical individual, one may wonder whether the notion of natural kinds is at all useful in biology. For biology, the notion of category is perhaps of more interest. A category is a set of slots in configuration space that differ structurally to some extent from one another. The category of elements, for instance, contains all element slots; these slots differ from one another in number of protons, but are similar in that they all fit a general model of atomic structure.
Because of the universal character of categories, biologists often interpret categories as natural kinds; but that is a mistake. The category of cells, for instance, defines what a cell is, and therefore contains the set of all different cell slots, some of which are filled with an individual cell. In contrast, the natural kind formed by a single "organism slot" also refers to a set of cell slots, but only to a particular set: those cell slots the unique combination of which forms the stable supra-cellular configuration of that organism slot. If filled, the organism slot is composed of cell slots each of which is filled too.
Guenter P. Wagner, Department of Biology. Yale University, "Natural Kinds and the Design of Complex Organisms"
The major distinguishing feature of so-called "complex" organisms, as compared to so-called "simple" ones, is the fact that they are composed of supra-cellular units, variously called organs, body parts, characters, modules, building blocks or homologues. In this contribution I will argue that these organizational units qualify as natural kinds. The starting point is Quine's notion of Natural Kinds (NK's), which clearly points out that NK's are defined relative to a class of processes. I will augment Quine's concept with the proposal that in the natural sciences NK's are recognized through a (potentially large) list of dispositional properties. The use of dispositional properties eliminates most of the philosophical problems with defining NK's. For the special case of organismal modules it is argued that the reference process is adaptation by natural selection. Accepting this postulate and using Quine's notion of NK's, it is concluded that body parts qualify as NK's if they are independent units of natural variation and have a unique pattern of constraints and degrees of freedom for natural variation (Wagner, 1996, Am. Zool. 36:36ff). The constraints on variability determine the limits on the pattern of natural variation available to natural selection. They thus define the conditions under which the body part "participates" in the process of adaptation by natural selection and are therefore the relevant properties to define a NK in accordance with Quine's notion of NK's. It is concluded that properly identified body parts are emergent units of organization which deserve the status of NK's, comparable to other such units as genes and species. -
LXI Sessions In Honor Of Frederick B. Churchill. Organizers: Ronald Rainger, Texas Tech University, and Judy Johns Schloegel, Indiana University.
The students and colleagues of Frederick B. Churchill have organized four sessions in honor of his sixty-fifth birthday in December, 1997. Contributors will examine his scholarly influence in diverse areas of the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century biology, his historiographical approach to history and history of biology, and his influence as a teacher and mentor. Sessions will focus on the history of sexuality, methods and traditions in descriptive and experimental biology, evolution and ethics, and public domains of biology and the history of biology. Contributors will address issues in German, French, British and American biology, and sessions will collectively explore aspects of the private and public worlds of biology.
Session Four: Public Worlds in Biology and the History of Biology
In the 1960s, Frederick Churchill came of age as a member of the first generation of professional historians of biology in the United States. Those figures took the lead in attempting to carve out a new field of research and pedagogy; they were likewise well aware of the need to understand the relationship of biology and the history of biology to other fields. The papers in this session examine biology and the history of biology in relation to the many domains, public as well as private, within which they operate.
Karen A. Rader, Princeton University, "The History of Biology Before, During, and After (Fred) Churchill: Some Historiographic Reflections and Speculations"
As one of the small group of students of the history of biology who worked with Everett Mendelsohn at Harvard in the mid-1960s, Frederick Churchill completed his dissertation in 1967, then went to work at Indiana University, where he continued with his own original research in the history of German science, as well as trained many American students in the field. This paper will broadly examine the pre-1967 history of the history of biology, noting the strong communication between scientists and historians in the field during the period, but also the lack of effective professionalization mechanisms and larger historiographical referents in light of the physics-oriented master narrative of immediate post-war history of science. Then, using multiple (albeit selective) indicators -- e.g. content survey, in five year intervals, of the Journal of the History of Biology, professional "family trees" of key history of biology mentors (especially Fred Churchill) and their students; and a brief review of Churchill's own major works -- it will suggest several ways in which the history of biology has changed -- in both form and content -- over the last thirty years, as well as several ways in which the field has continued to draw strength from its origins. The paper will then conclude with some speculations on the future of the field -- with special reference to the work of Churchill's students -- and some reflections on the value of historiographical analysis for understanding ISHPSSB's contemporary collective enterprise.
Ronald Rainger, Texas Tech University, "Harald Sverdrup, the Scripps Institution, and the Multiple Worlds of Oceanography"
In a review essay written in 1981, Fred Churchill explored several dimensions of the foundations of biology. In addition to discussing biology as a process of inquiry and an object of study, Churchill noted the need to integrate the analysis of social and institutional factors with the conceptual. This paper builds on Churchillís call for such an integration by examining significant social, scientific and institutional changes that occurred at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the 1930s and 1940s. The paper will focus on the activities of Harald Sverdrup, a Norwegian scientist who served as the second director of Scripps. Trained in a northern European tradition that defined oceanography almost exclusively in terms of meteorology and geophysics, Sverdrup was initially dismissive of work done in marine biology, fisheries research, and submarine geology --fields that had a long standing tradition and provided much needed financial support for oceanography at Scripps. The paper will explore how Sverdrup adapted to and incorporated such multiple scientific emphases, practices, and subcultures to establish not only a new foundation for biological oceanography, but also new research emphases and initiatives that significantly changed the institution.
Timothy Lenoir, Stanford University, "Nuclear Spinoffs: The Manhattan Project for Medicine"
As a student in Fred Churchillís course on the rise of scientific medicine, I was introduced to the role instrumentation has played in discipline building and professionalization strategies of medical scientists. My own recent research on the history of medical imaging takes up that theme. Focusing on the establishment of nuclear medicine as a specialty, I will illustrate the crucial role of discipline builders in negotiating local, state, and national political arenas within universities, government, and medical societies. I will argue that the establishment of nuclear medicine required a massive public relations campaign to convince the public that while the atom bomb had produced a great public health disaster, atomic medicine could cure cancer. The case provides a window into the processes that have created the modern high-tech hospital environment. A distinctive feature of the medical landscape since the 1950s is the increasing dependence on high technology for the delivery of health care, and no fields illustrate this better than radiology and nuclear medicine. But the familiar MRI, CAT, and PET images are in fact offspring of federally funded research programs in the national physics laboratories of the AEC. I will explore these themes in three different institutional settings: the AEC labs at UCLA, UC Berkeleyís Donner Lab, and the Oak Ridge National Laboraotory. I will discuss radioisotope production and distribution programs of the AEC during the late 1940s and 1950s, but will focus on the development of the Anger Scintillation Camera, a core technology for medical imaging.
Lyndsay Farrall, The Friendsí School, "Will the History of Biology Play a Role in the High School Curriculum of the 21st Century?"
Using Australian curriculum developments as examples, this paper explores possible roles to be played by the history of biology in the high school curriculum as we move into the 21st century. The paper outlines ways in which history of biology is included in current Australian curriculum documents in different learning areas covering the high school years. It examines the reasons for inclusion of topics from the history of biology and discusses whether other topics could have been included given the rationale behind the high school curriculum. The paper then suggests ways in which the history of biology and historians of biology might contribute to future high school curriculum developments.
LXII Behavioral Genetics: Historical, Methodological, and Social Issues. Organizer: Ken Schaffner, George Washington University.
This symposium examines philosophical, historical, and social issues raised by the science of behavioral genetics (BG), with a primary focus on human studies. The participants' views range across a spectrum from positive views of the discipline to strongly critical assessments, both on scientific and social grounds. Ed Manier presents an account of what he views as one of the strongest long- term studies of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language in the classical BG area conducted by Kagan and Plomin. He backgrounds that example with an account of an earlier BG animal study involving dogs. Ken addresses two very recent human studies of "genes for" novelty seeking and anxiety/neuroticism, and considers the pros and cons of the molecular methodology underlying this work. Gar Allen presents a strong criticism of the entire enterprise of BG, arguing that it misunderstands the nature of the gene-phenotype relation and that it is socially naive (and dangerous). Wim van der Steen provides another critical view, extending BG to psychiatric genetics and develops arguments against over reliance on a biological psychiatry approach. The four participants thus will conduct an in-depth debate over the methods and putative results of this controversial discipline. Detailed abstracts provided by each of the four speakers follow.
Session Two:
Garland Allen, Washington University at St. Louis, "What's Wrong With "The Gene for ..... (Fill in your favorite behavior)?"
The modern biomedical model of human behavior and personality (especially mental disease) is based on a mechanistic materialist view of the world that is out of touch with views in genetics and population genetics. The phrase "The gene for . . . " conceals much of that outmoded and simplistic view that traces complex human behaviors to single deterministic units. Virtually all genes interact with other genes and with the environment to produce phenotypes that are, to varying degrees highly plastic, depending on the input. Searching for the genetic basis, or genetic influence on complex phenotypes such as manic depression, alcoholism, criminality or homosexuality is scientifically and socially misguided. Scientifically, it ignores the biological facts of how genes function (including the concept of "norm of reaction") and socially it is naive in assuming that demonstrating a genetic cause will reduce prejudice about such conditions (e.g. homosexuality or certain mental conditions) and/or lead to a cure. Historically, demonstrating a genetic cause for human behavior has never led to either greater tolerance or to ready- made solutions. A naive view of the role of genes in human behavior can lead to misguided medical and dangerous political and social solutions. In this talk I will outline the methodological flaws and the political/social dangers inherent in widespread belief in genetic claims about complex human behaviors. [Dr. Brad Stuart: As medical resources shrink and financial burdens increase families will be pressured to accept more and more euthanasia. "Good Morning America" 1/7/97]
Wim J. van der Steen, Free University, The Netherlands, "Biology In Psychiatry: Fostering Modesty"
Biological psychiatry is now the dominant variety of psychiatry. I argue that the import of biology is vastly overrated. A common assumption is that aberrant genes are responsible for severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. These genes allegedly cause brain pathologies responsible for mental and behavioral abnormalities. Evidence pointing to genetic abnormalities is at best equivocal. In monozygotic twins the concordance for schizophrenia is about 25%. This does show that environmental factors play a role. It does not prove that genetic influences exist. Additional assumptions which are needed to prove this are seldom tested in psychiatry. Evidence of brain pathology is likewise equivocal, not least because patients investigated are on a medication which is known to produce brain pathology. Even a concordance in monozygotic twins of 100% would not prove much. Consider the following example. You organize a trip for monozygotic twins in a coastal plain. The twin pairs differ in height. The trip is wrecked by a sudden flood. The smallish twins drown, the tall ones survive. Here we have 100% concordance. But I guess you wouldn't say that the drowning is genetically determined and that the flood is causally unimportant. The example shows that we have to decide which factors are causally salient. Genetic determination or, more generally, biological determination, to the extent that it exists, may be entirely unimportant. It is also conceivable that genetic/biological factors are implicated in the generation of relatively mild psychiatric symptoms, and that the symptoms are aggravated secondarily by psychosocial factors, for example in an adverse medical setting. Lastly, we should note that medical professionals at times tend to equate biological factors with internal factors and psychosocial factors with external factors. The impact of external biological and physical factors is thus overlooked, with the result that genetic factors are overemphasized. All in all, many sources of bias contribute to excessively biological approaches. We should be aware of limits of biology, in psychiatry and elsewhere.
ï Social and Cultural Studies of Biotechnology. This topic covers studies of biotech labs and firms, and the rapidly expanding uses of molecular biological technologies in medical, legal and commercial institutions. Examples of paper topics: the development of the national DNA data base in the UK; legal controversies in the US about the admissibility of DNA profile evidence; molecular biology and surveillance; the privatization of DNA and molecular biological research; and intellectual property issues and disputes. Organizer: Michael Lynch (
Session Two:
Joao Arriscado Nunes, University of Coimbra, Portugal, "Shifting Scales, Articulating Cancer: Towards of Cartography of Oncobiological Research"
The "molecular turn" in cancer research has often been associated with a reductionist program, which would attempt to locate the origin of the initiation, promotion or suppression of tumors in genetic processes. Researchers in oncobiology, however, still struggle with the problem of having to deal with diseases which are mostly caused by exposure to environmental factors. Whereas the processes dealt with by molecular genetics are seen as crucial to the understanding of cancer, just how these are connected to transformations at the cellular, tissue, organ, system or organismic level and to interfaces with the environment is still one of the major challenges to oncobiology. Drawing on the laboratory practice and on the discourse of oncobiological researchers, it is argued that a specific mode of spatial imagery, centered on scale, is one of the resources these researchers draw upon in order to articulate the different levels at which cancer is located by the various approaches and disciplines involved. This feature is central to the emergence of a new contextual paradigm in oncobiology. Adapting an analytical tool developed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos for the study of law, a cartographic approach to cancer research is outlined and drawn upon to discuss work in progress in an oncobiology laboratory. This framework is based on the centrality of scale and on the definition, construction and articulation of scientific work and of scientific objects at different scales.
Kathleen Jordan, Boston University (
If we see molecular biology as a science of tools, we recognize that its techniques have varying degrees of practical malleability that allow information about the molecular level to be physically accessible, workable, and usable. Techniques like PCR are organized through in situ practices which arrange materials into a number of configurations specific to the work at hand. It is essential that the technique is reproducible materially under diverse conditions. PCR carries with it a plasticity for the way the practical actions that make it up are performed and achieved. There is an inherently pervasive, and mandatory, requirement of procedural flexibility that confronts practitioners when they try to perform the technique. Procedural flexibility involves interpretations, choices, and malleable rationales that apply even after a technology has been standardized. I propose that whole orders of procedural flexibility are necessary when a technoscientific practice has reached a point of stabilization, and when its practice becomes somewhat standardized for dissemination into communities of users. If PCR technology is as versatile as it's corporate promoters and sponsors lead the professional public to believe, how do practitioners maintain a stable and reliable complex of practices? Responses to this question come through in what practitioners say about the kinds of activities they produce when attempting to make the technique work for them in a number of academic and commercial basic research programs, and in the high volume production oriented settings of clinical diagnostic and forensic work.
Joan Fujimura, Stanford University (email:
Contemporary science is transnational in terms of global productions and circulations of techno-scientific projects. In the case of human genome research, this English-dominated, European and North American-framed and oriented project is locally rooted and now globally distributed. Non-Euro-Americans participate in this project through either adopting its methods, practices, and theoretical frames, or through their roles as research objects and testing sites for Euro-American theories and methods. The primary example I discuss is the Japanese human genome project, and especially the bioinformatics end of that work. What does it mean to locate oneself in the Monbusho Human Genome Center at Tokyo University's Ikka Ken Byooin in Shirokanedai, Tokyo? This paper discusses what the world of human genome work looks like from the HGC's computer laboratory. It also attends to the differences and similarities between several sites of knowledge production and consumption. The paper assumes that the circulation of Euro-American science is not a unidirectional process.
LXIII The Popularization of Biology: Three Case Studies. A study of the popularization of biology is an important element in any attempt to understand how information and perceptions about biology are transmitted to nonscientists. But the popularization of biology is hardly a monolithic enterprise. One way to approach this diversity is through case studies of successful popularization efforts. Three such efforts will be presented in this session. Presenters include: John Jungck, Professor of Biology at Beloit College, ìHow Popularization Affects Research Agendasî; Maura C. Flannery, Professor of Biology at St. Johnís University, NY, ìHomer Smith and the Popularization of Biology Through Philosophyî; and Robert Hendrick, Professor of History, St. Johnís University, NY, ìThe Historian as Biologist: Jules Micheletís Natural Histories.î Organizer: Robert Hendrick (
John Jungck, Beloit College, "How Popularization Affects Research Agendas"
Contemporary interest in fractals has made professional biologists rethink some of their ideas on plant architecture. In this presentation, late nineteenth and early twentieth century images of phyllotaxis in plants and spirals in shells will be examined to see the ways in which scientists duplicated images by photographic artists such as Weston and popularizations such as Cookís The Curves of Life. The relation of mathematics to biology in terms of this topic will be explored.
Maura C. Flannery, St. Johnís University, "Homer Smith and the Popularization of Biology Through Philosophy"
Homer Smith was a prominent physiologist during the first half of the twentieth century. His area of research was renal function, but he was also interested in the evolution of the kidney. His popular book on this subject, From Fish to Philosopher, has become a classic. Smithís other popular writings were more philosophical, and in them he explored the implications of biology and technology in the modern world. This paper will deal with the major ideas in Smithís popular works, and how they relate to his conception of what he terms ìmanís place in nature.î
Robert Hendrick, St. Johnís University , "The Historian as Biologist: Jules Micheletís Natural Histories"
When Jules Michelet died in 1874, the highly respected French science periodical, La Nature, noted in its obituary that he had ìconquered a distinguished place for himself in the first ranks of science writers.î It made this judgment based on four biology books Michelet had published LíOiseau (The Bird, 1856) LíInsecte (The Insect, 1857), La Mer (The Sea), and La Montagne (The Mountain, 1869). These four books on natural history were immensely popular; more than any other single factor, they made biology attractive to the French public in the period before Louis Pasteurís major contributions to the science. But Michelet was not a biologist. He was a prominent historian, who had no scientific training. Yet his ìnature booksî contained ideological assumptions that made them appealing to the public, and they were written in a style that excited the readerís interest in natural history. As such, they are models of the popularization of biology in the last century. This paper examines how Michelet ìsoldî biology to the public.
Sunday, July 20, 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.
LXIV Evolutionary Narratives: Lessons From History And Future Prospects (a self-organizing, open discussion session)
Lead discussants: Connie Barlow, Brian Goodwin, Stanley Salthe, Tyler Volk Organizer: Connie Barlow (
Part I. The Evolutionary Epic, Past And Future. Julian Huxley, Alister
Hardy, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin were early
promoters of evolution as a religious worldview. Have their visions survived
their deaths? What about today's visionaries? E. O. Wilson coined the term,
'evolutionary epic', but the impetus today is coming more from the physical
sciences, notably Eric Chaisson and Brian Swimme. Where are the biologists?
What are the dangers and what are the opportunities in extending science
into the realm of meaning?
LXV A-Life and Foundational Questions in Biology, Organizer: Claus Emmeche (
This session will include papers related to:
* the modeling relation of ALife
* the fundamentals of the philosophy of biology: what have we learned from AL?
* the San Sebastian approach to the philosophy of AL
* conceptual analysis of form, energy, matter and information
* the definition of life
* emergence and n'te order structures
* physics meets biology
* sociological aspects of ALife
* the place of ALife in the history of biology
Session One:
Brian L. Keeley, University of California at San Diego (email:
What are the future prospects for the field of ALife? After the first ten years of its latest incarnation, what are the successes and potential pitfalls for the formal and computational study of life-as-it-could-be? This short talk will address these questions. Among its successes, ALife has yielded insights into the relationships between different adaptive mechanisms, e.g., learning, development, and evolution. Among the potential pitfalls, ALife has failed to transit from a trend or a theme in a variety of disciplines to a legitimate discipline in its own right. Perhaps the greatest reason for this is the failure to develop a philosophical core which is both compelling and independent of the foundations of related disciplines. I conclude that the next few years represent a singularity which will determine whether ALife will flourish as an independent endeavor or wither away as passing fad.
2. Alvaro Moreno, University of the Basque Country (
Artificial Life holds that it can universalize biology by defining life as a specific kind of organization in which its concrete material embeddedness is irrelevant. However, this claim seems at odds with the fact that life as we know it relies on a deep entanglement between form and matter and, given selective pressure, it seems hard to imagine how living functions could had arisen and evolve otherwise. We present here three main arguments against the functionalist thesis of separability between organization and (passive) matter: 1. The requirement for a causal relationship between the constructive and thermodynamical operational closure in any autonomous system 2. The search of simplicity in the organization requires (a maximum of) implicit information embedded in specific material components, and 3. If, as we hold, living systems are based on complex forms of circular causality between symbolic and dynamical levels, then, as a consequence of the strong self reference between these both levels of organization, the functionalist thesis should be rejected. Finally, we propose that AL can overcome these objections by combining pure computational research with physical realizations relying in self organizing capacities of material components.
3. Claus Emmeche, University of Copenhagen, "Defining Life, Explaining Emergence"
The strong version of Artificial Life claim that emergent computational patterns may not simply simulate life but realize the very phenomenon. This is one of several reasons why a definition of life is of interest. In this paper, it is argued that the received view of definitions of life in biology and philosophy is misleading. Generality cannot in general be dispensed with. Though criteria for adequacy of definitions are highly context-dependent, definitions of life are of a special nature, belonging to what is here called ontodefinitions. Separate definitions of life fulfilling a set of relevant criteria exist and belong to distinct paradigms of theoretical biology. Emergence is implicit in these. The paper investigates if emergence entails 'downward causation' (several kinds are defined), and asks if computational models can represent higher orders of emergence. Finally, a comment is made on the role of Wittgenstein's philosophy in understanding the nature of explanation and definition in science.
ïSystems Theory
Helga Zangerl-Weisz, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education, of the Universities of Innsbruck, Klagenfurt and Vienna (IFF) (e-mail:
One of the problems of the environmental debate is that the different disciplines involved in this discussion do not share a common concept of society, nature and their interactions. Whereas natural scientists conceive nature as a highly complex system, they tend to underestimate the complexity of societies. Social scientists on the other hand, focus on the complexity of societies which usually are conceptualized as non material, symbolic systems (see for example Luhmann 1984). The "Human Exceptionalism Paradigm" of sociology paradigmatically excludes material causes for social phenomena. These disciplinary restrictions have gradually been recognized within the past decades (see for example Catton & Dunlap 1978), and it has been concluded that the scientific pursuit of environmental issues demands an interdisciplinary approach.
In this paper a model of the interactions between society and nature will be presented which is based on systems theory. Society and nature are both highly complex systems which have some structural and functional features in common. The systems can be described by their elements, their boundaries and the main functional relationships between them. Environmental or sustainability problems can be described in this model as problems of coevolution of two autopoietic systems. Two complementary concepts "Society's Metabolism" and "Colonization of Nature", that allow to operationalize and empirically estimate pressure indicators, can be developed from this model and will be presented. I will also demonstrate conceptual and empirical applications of this concept to analyse the sustainability problems of different kinds of society.
Debora Hammond, University of California at Berkeley (email:
The behavioral sciences emerged in the 1950's as an attempt to integrate biological, psychological, and social sciences in the study of human behavior. Such efforts were profoundly shaped by the parallel development of systems concepts across a broad spectrum of fields. Based on my research on the Society of General Systems Research, founded in 1954 by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Kenneth Boulding, Ralph Gerard, and Anatol Rapoport in connection with their work at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, I will explore a range of ideological commitments and their relationship to the types of models used in such integrative efforts. Gerard (along with James Grier Miller, who worked closely with Gerard and Rapoport) appealed to the cooperative ethos he thought was embodied in the organismic model of society. However, this tended to support a fairly paternalistic conception of the role of the behavioral scientist, as well as a hierarchical view of social organization. Boulding, on the other hand, tended to see society in what he described as more ecological and evolutionary terms, and, like Bertalanffy and Rapoport, emphasized the role of values in human behavior. I have argued that systems concepts, especially the notion of self-organization, might support more participatory models of social organization and decision-making processes, and that this potential is reflected more in the work of the latter group than in that of the former. However, it is important to recognize the potential for this perspective as well to be used for ideological purposes, as in Michael Rothschild's more recent work, BIONOMICS: ECONOMY AS ECOSYSTEM, which uses the ecosystem model to justify corporate concentrations of wealth and power. In addressing his work, I will ask whether or not such appropriations invalidate the potential contributions of systems concepts to a more emancipatory approach to the theory and practice of social organization.
ïEvolutionary Values
Olaf Diettrich, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition, "Co-Evolution Of The Organic And Cognitive Phenotype"
Most of what nowadays is called evolutionary epistemology tries to explain the phylogenetic acquisition of inborn 'knowledge' and the evolution of the mental instruments concerned in terms of adaptation to external conditions. These conditions, however, cannot be described but in terms of what is provided by the mental instruments which are said to be brought about just by these conditions themselves. So, they cannot be defined in an objective and non-circular way. This problem is approached here by what is called 'Constructivist Evolutionary Epistemology' (CEE): In analogy to physics where observables are defined as invariants of experimental measurement operators, the CEE considers the perceived patterns and regularities from which we derive the laws of nature to be invariants of inborn cognitive (sensory) operators. Then, the so called laws of nature are the result of cognitive evolution and, therefore, are human specific. (Whether, e.g., we would identify the law of energy conservation which in physics is derived from the homogeneity of time, depends on the mental time-metric generator defining what is homogeneous in time). They nevertheless allow correct empirical predictions if the generating cognitive operators commute with the operators of human physical acting, which is a question of their common co-evolution. Cognitive operators and the cognitive phenotype they represent, therefore, do not need to develop phylogenetically in adaptation to an external world as proposed by Campbell's 'natural selection epistemology'. Similar applies to the organic phenotype. It has not to evolve in adaptation to its biotop as long as it can modify or select the biotop according to its previously defined internal needs and requirements. If cognitive operators are extended by means of experimental operators the result can be expressed in classical terms if both commute in the sense of operator algebra (quantitative extensions). Otherwise non-classical approaches such as quantum mechanics are required (qualitative extensions). As qualitative extensions never can be excluded, it follows that there will be no definitive set of laws of nature and no definitive 'theory of everything'. From applying this concept to the inborn operators of mathematical thinking and their algorithmic extensions, it follows that there will be no definitive set of axioms, i.e., it would explain Goedel's theorem of incompleteness. Assuming that cognitive evolution made the operators of perception and the operators of mathematical thinking to commute, one could explain both the 'algorithmic compressibility of the world' and the success of induction. The various ontological prerequisites being the basis of epistemologies discussed in the theory of science are replaced here by the requirement that the cognitive phenotype must be able to reproduce itself like the organic phenotype: our cognitive phenotype has to bring about a world picture within which the cognitive phenotype himself can be explained as resulting from an abiotic, then biotic, organic. cognitive and eventually scientific evolution. Any cognitive phenotype reproducing itself in this sense (together with its organic phenotype) represents a possible and consistent world together with its interpretation and mastery - and none of them is ontologically privileged.
Douglas Allchin, Univ. of Texas at El Paso (email:
Evolutionary approaches to ethics have been severely crippled due to a reductionistic preoccupation with the genetic basis of behavior, individual fitness and the corresponding pseudoparadox of altruism. I sketch a fruitful alternative, addressing the fundamental cognitive problem of assigning value, the hitherto underappreciated relationship between ethics and aesthetics, and the valuation of behavior in a social context. Ultimately, I hope to rescue evolutionary ethics from any remaining sociobiological shackle and to describe how evolutionary accounts complement, rather than supplant, the great traditions in philosophy.
LXVI Species: Plurality and Essence
Speakers:
David Hull: "Of the Plurality of Species"
Paul Griffiths: "Squaring the Circle: Natural Kinds with Historical Essences"
Abstracts not Available.
Sunday, July 20, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
LXVII Evolutionary Narratives: Lessons From History And Future Prospects (a self-organizing, open discussion session)
Lead discussants: Connie Barlow, Brian Goodwin, Stanley Salthe, Tyler Volk Organizer: Connie Barlow (
Part II. Changing Metaphors. Early evolutionary narratives centered on the
metaphors of strife and competition, such as Darwin's wedge metaphor and
Thomas Huxley's gladiator imagery. The selfish gene metaphor continues in
that strain, but another school of evolutionary research and ideas places
less emphasis on competition and survival and more on the emergence of
creativity and meaning. What are the prospects for shifting both
professional and popular images of evolution toward metaphors of creativity
and meaning? How might this impinge on worldviews both within and beyond the
range of science?
Part III. Evolution Of The Biosphere. Happenstance, gaian homeostasis,
trends, or development?
Discussion format. We will use a modified octavian format, with 6 or 8 chairs
arranged in a semicircle at the front of the room. Discussants and
interested audience participants will cycle in and out of the chairs as the
spirit moves them, and conversation will develop without the intervention of
a moderator, in a flow of self-organized, emergent creativity.
LXVIII A-Life and Foundational Questions in Biology, Organizer: Claus Emmeche (
This session will include papers related to:
* the modeling relation of ALife
* the fundamentals of the philosophy of biology: what have we learned from AL?
* the San Sebastian approach to the philosophy of AL
* conceptual analysis of form, energy, matter and information
* the definition of life
* emergence and n'te order structures
* physics meets biology
* sociological aspects of ALife
* the place of ALife in the history of biology
Session Two:
Naomi Dar, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Alife and the Structuralistic Definition of Life"
The desire of A-Life theoreticians to synthesize alternative life forms calls for a rigorous definition of life. The distinction of living entities from the non-living can be based either on a function of living systems, such as self-reproduction, or a structural definition, such as metabolic activity. The acceptance of either a functional or structural definition determines the likelihood of life construction. The functional definition does not rely on a reduction to the interaction of carbohydrates in actual living system. Therefore, if life is defined through the reproductive function, the artificial construction of life is highly probable. I claim, that if metabolism is defined as structural, there are two conditions that this definition should fulfill: 1. A definition of a system; 2. A formal description of its formation by the interactions of its parts. Therefore, if metabolism is defined as a structure, its definition as such is embedded in the actual interactions of carbohydrate molecules, and the metabolic activities that lead to their self-formation. Hence, if life is defined by a structuralistic approach, the possibility of constructing life is dependent on a similar metabolic activity of the "living" system. However, metabolic activity might be found in other interacting molecules, and would likewise extend our definition of life. Although a functional definition is more applicable to A-Life, I will argue that a structural definition better distinguishes living from non-living entities. The structural definition of a living system can explain the fundamental features that enables the development and evolution of living systems.
LXIX Policy-Relevant Ecology: Modeling the Socio-Natural Order This mini-stream will critically examine the role of scientific knowledge in environmental policy. It is anticipated that this would include papers on, for example: global environmentalism; environmental science-policy boundaries; and local environmental practice and long-term processes. The stream is intended to bring together those with an interest in the on-going use of ecology in various policy domains including nature conservation and sustainability. Session Organizer: Andrew Samuel, Lancaster University (email:
Julia Garritt, Lancaster University, "The Role of Ecology in Implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity in the UK."
In the UK, ecology is used as the primary scientific discipline for informing biodiversity conservation practices. This paper argues that the historical division between the sub-disciplines of population ecology and ecosystems ecology meant that following one approach over the other determines strongly the priorities of the policy which is being informed.
This is illustrated by a case study of biodiversity conservation in the UK. Historically, population ecology has been used to inform nature conservation policies in the UK. The government's response to the CAB (The UK Action Plan) follows this tradition. I argue that this results in biodiversity being interpreted as a sectoral, 'nature conservation' issue, rather than the comprehensive issue which is envisaged in the CBD. as a result, I believe that the concept of biodiversity cannot be fully explored whilst these principles remain; equally the protection and sustainable use of natural biological resources cannot be successfully covered by policies being informed in this way.
Yrji Haila, University of Tampere, Finland, "The Contrasting Faces of Biodiversity Discourse"
Since the UNCED 1992 conference in Rio De Janeiro, biodiversity has become a growth industry both in research and in environmental policy making. My focus will be on the interface between these two aspects of the issue. I will start from the already existing reviews of the rise into publicity of the biodiversity issue. Then I analyze the diverging trends inherent in how the issue is interpreted: on the one hand, biodiversity can facilitate the understanding of the multiple duties of humankind to respect life on the earth, on the other hand, biodiversity seems to give economic and political assets to those in power. The main part of the paper will chart connections between conservation biology as a science and field of research, and the normative background assumption on our duty to preserve biodiversity which, again, reflect the underlying views of different agents of the nature of society and social order.
LXX Phylogenetics Organizer: Michael T. Ghiselin (
Mikael Harlin, California Academy of Sciences (email:
I address two issues within phylogenetic systematics. First, the role of the character in the search for natural groups, and, second, the linearity and lack of tree thinking in phylogenetic representation in the 19th and 20th centuries. Based on an historical survey of viewpoints in the post-Darwinian era and on Darwin's own views on classification I argue that one reason for the (past and present) lack of tree-thinking is the priority given to characters rather than trees. We must reverse our focus in phylogenetic analysis and give priority to the tree instead of characters. The only way to do so is to accept the tree as an axiom.
Michael T. Ghiselin, California Academy of Sciences (email:
In addition to drawing tree-like diagrams, phylogeneticists have attempted to provide scenarios, or narrative historical accounts of evolutionary history. Some of these (how-possibly scenarios) are intended only to show how something might have evolved. Others (how-actually scenarios) are a serious effort to establish what did in fact happen. The latter became a serious enterprise only with the Darwinian revolution and was accompanied by efforts to develop methodological principles for such inference. The difference provides a useful demarcation principle for modern evolutionary biology and its precursors.
Sabine Brauckmann, University of Muenster, (email:
My talk concentrating on the Russian entomologist Aleksander Lubishev (1890-1972) will give a first overview of the Russian nomogenetic school developed by the geologist Lev Berg (1879-1950) in this century. This Russian model to explain the phenomenon of phylogeny represents a remarkable non-Darwinian approach for an evolutionary theory which is not based on the trinity of selection, mutation, and adaptation caused by external constraints alone. Contrary to every Darwinian theory of evolution, the nomogenetic interpretation conceded to selection at best a secondary and negative importance for evolutionary changes, and concentrated experimentally on morphogenetic laws by which a living organism is demarcated from its abiotic environment and varied. Lubishev, who wanted to work out the methodological basis for a theory of evolution, outlined the differences and sources of two lines of thinking in biology, corresponding to those of Darwin versus Baer. However, as different from Berg's ``Nomogenesis'', he distinguished between the laws which determine the potential variability and diversity of organisms, and the laws determining the direction of evolution. In a programmatic paper, ``Postulates of modern selectogenesis'', Lubishev developed a detailed analysis and comparison of postulates used in tychogenetic (selectogenetic) and nomogenetic explanations of evolution. Based on his works about taxonomy he concluded that the natural and phylogenetic classifications follow principally different aims and postulates, which could not be mixed. The natural classification, based on the congruence of form, and on the laws of variability (and transformation), could become a good and solid basis for theoretical biology. To the contrary the phylogenetic system, which is built by a reconstruction of history (phylogeny), firstly, requires the natural classification as a tool, and secondly, could not be used as a basis for any theory per se, because a phylogenetic classification may coincide to the natural system in particular cases, but it cannot be the cause of their unification for methodological reasons.
Keywords: nomogenesis, taxonomy, typology, selectogenesis, morphogenetic laws
ïDisease
Bernardino Fantini, University of Geneva (email:
The first modern development of the expression 'molecular disease', previously considered as synonymous with 'chemical disease', can be found in the well known paper by Linus Pauling (Science, 1949) on sickle cell anemia, four years before the official origin of molecular biology with the publication of the Watson-Crick double helix model. What was actually meant by Pauling with the expression "molecular disease"? Was the specific cause of the disease to be looked for on the molecular level? If a molecule can be in some sense affected by a disease then it should be considered as a living entity, as by definition only a living object can be sick. As a consequence, the introduction of the concept of 'molecular diseases' raised a series of relevant theoretical questions. Has the idea of sickle cell anemia moved from a vision of a cell malformation to a macromolecule malformation? Or has a more radical change in the concept of disease occurred? What vision of life emerges from the idea of 'living macromolecules' ? In the decades following the original publication by Pauling, the concept of molecular disease has underwent profound modifications. The idea of a 'sick molecule' as been abandoned in favor of a theory of molecular pathology based on the flow of genetic information carried on by macromolecules and transformed within the cell. A molecular disease started to be considered of a modification of the 'normal' flow of information in the cell or in the organism. Life is here conceived as a set of relationships between macromolecules, as Pauling has put it himself. We face the same problem Claude Bernard had faced in the XIXth century and had left unsolved : living phenomena are performed by deterministic physical-chemical processes, but what controls theses processes? The concept of information might help us to address this problem. As medicine has a fundamental ethical commitment to healing, what are the practical consequences of the new ideas of life and disease on the search for therapy ? Since a therapy can be at the same level as the disease, that is macromolecules, the tools of the therapy must become molecular too. The traditional blending in medicine between knowledge and action acquires in such a way new dimensions.
Robert I. Krasner, Providence College, "New and Emerging Infections: A Problem of a Changing Society."
Infectious diseases antedate the emergence of human life and result from an imbalance of a symbiotic relationship between man and microbes. History reveals that mankind has been ravaged by the scourge of microorganisms since antiquity and that microbial disease has significantly impacted the course of civilization. In the 1970's, scientists proclaimed that the war against microbial disease had been won; new antibiotics, continued development of vaccines, and improved surveillance and hygiene fueled this victory. For a variety of reasons, however,. these expectations have not been fully realized. On the contrary, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, flesh-eating streptococci, Hantavirus, antibiotic resistant tuberculosis, Legionnaire's Disease, Lyme Disease, Ebola and cholera represent new, emerging, and re-emerging infections. Death from microbial diseases has increased at an alarming rate, the Centers for Disease Control report infectious disease as the third leading killer lagging behind heart disease and cancer. The public's interest has been captured by an explosion of novels, movies, and articles dealing with this subject. The spectre of microbial infection is a cause for global concern, and it appears that humans may be losing ground in the on-going fight against microbes. Explanations for this turn of evens are based in the dynamic balance between host and parasite including technological advances, demographic changes, and societal attitudes. The problem of new and emerging infections and strategies for prevention and control will be explored in this section.
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Last updated: 2 July 1997.