vendredi 09 octobre 2009
Thierry Hoquet (Université Paris X-Nanterre, Paris)
"L'Origine des espèces : au prisme des traductions"
vendredi 26 juin 2009 à l'Institut Pasteur
John Cambier (University of Colorado, Denver)
"Molecular underpinning of B cell anergy & its disruption by infectious agents"
jeudi 14 mai 2009
Richard Delisle (University of Lethbridge, Canada)
"Les rapports (surprenants?) de Ernst Mayr avec l'empirisme logique et le mouvement pour l'unité de la science"
http://philbioihpst.free.fr/DelisleArticle.pdf
jeudi 7 mai 2009
John Beatty (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)
"Rethinking the importance of chance variation"
In his 1989 book, "Wonderful Life", Stephen Gould offered the following thought experiment in order to express what he took to be the highly contingent nature of evolutionary outcomes: "I call this experiment 'replaying life's tape.' You press the rewind button and, making sure you thoroughly erase everything that actually happened, go back to any time and place in the past... Then let the tape run again and see if the repetition looks at all like the original." His expectation was that, "any replay of the tape would lead evolution down a pathway radically different from the road actually taken."
I will focus here on one particular source of contingency, namely, chance variation and the order in which it appears. Gould's emphasis on contingency was part of his case against the all-importance of natural selection. And my paper is also in part about how chance variation--as a source of contingency--undercuts the all-importance of selection. I will present a somewhat (perhaps overly?!) panoramic view of these issues, from Darwin's (changing) outlook, through the evolutionary synthesis, up to the present.
vendredi 13 mars 2009
Massimo Pigliucci (State University of New York)
"Evolutionary theory: the view from Altenberg"
Modern evolutionary biology began with the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Since then, two major reassessments of the theory have taken place: the neo-Darwinian turn at the end of the 19th century (which definitely excluded Lamarckism), and the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and '40s (which reconciled Mendelism, statistical genetics and Darwinism). For years now scholars have been hinting at the necessity of a new Extended Synthesis, building on the conceptual framework laid out during the middle of the 20th century while incorporating new empirical findings and theoretical advances that have occurred since. In this talk I sketch how an Extended Synthesis is beginning to shape, with contributions from fields such as evo-devo, genomics, ecology and complexity theory, and with the incorporation of new concepts like phenotypic plasticity, modularity and evolvability. This makes for much intellectual excitement, not to mention some elementary observation on the sociology and psychology of science.
vendredi 19 décembre 2008
Laura Nűno De La Rosa (Doctorante, Universidad Complutense & IHPST)
"The role of form in molecular biology: Conceptual parallelisms with developmental and evolutionary biology"
Due to the hegemony of genetics, the vindication of the role of form in biology has been mainly posed against the belief in the molecular determination of morphology. As a consequence, the question of the irreducibility of biological form is usually found in the context of the confrontation between anti-reductionist epigenetic and reductionist molecular approaches. However, I claim that this debate has obscured a more fundamental question: Does molecular biology imply a reductionist 'anti-morphological' vision of the very biological macromolecules (i.e., proteins, DNA, RNA)? As a matter of fact, organic macromolecules are exemplar objects for theoretical biology, since genotype, phenotype, and function are different properties of a same entity (Stadler et al. 2001): DNA, RNA, and proteins are sequences of nucleotides or amino acids (genotype), but they only acquire a function when they fold into a three-dimensionalstructure (phenotype).
The goal of this talk is to unravel the ontological consequences of structural biology research programs, as well as explicit discussions concerning the nature of biological macromolecules, in order to evaluate whether they really fit with the common view of molecular biology. I will first analyze the definition of molecular form based on a variety of structural analysis techniques. Second, I will deal with the problem of the constitution of molecular form, i.e., the relationship between biomolecular wholes and parts. Third, I will explore the problem of the generation of macromolecular form, both in folding and in evolution. Finally, I will consider the many ways in which form relates to function in the molecular realm.
Through all these contexts, we will see that, despite the fact that molecular biology is claimed to be inherently reductionist, it actually faces problems surprisingly analogous to those posed by the morphological tradition at the organismal scale.
jeudi 11 décembre 2008
Pierre-Olivier Méthot (doctorant en cotutelle à l'Université d'Exeter et à Paris 1)
" Comment penser les rapports entre la médecine et l'évolution? Une approche historique et épistémologique de la question "
L'historien de la médecine William Bynum (1983) a déclaré qu'au même titre que la plupart des scientifiques du siècle dernier, les médecins doivent beaucoup à l'œuvre de Charles Darwin. Les défenseurs de la médecine évolutive sont aussi de l'avis que la théorie de l'évolution a une contribution importante à faire en médecine (Williams et Nesse 1991, 1995; Gluckman et Hanson 2005, 2006). Il est assez frappant de noter que, malgré les recommandations de la médecine évolutive et l'opinion de certains historiens, la pensée de Darwin ne semble pas avoir été à l'origine de changements importants dans le domaine médical comme c'est le cas dans d'autres secteurs des sciences de la vie. Pourquoi n'y a-t-il pas eu de révolution darwinienne en médecine? Dans cet exposé je présenterai d'abord, en les distinguant, les approches d'inspiration néo-darwinienne et néo-lamarckienne de la médecine qui se sont développées depuis les années '90. J'analyserai ensuite les raisons que ces auteurs proposent pour justifier l'émergence très récente de la médecine évolutive au sens large. Je suggérerai qu'une explication plus satisfaisante d'un point de vue philosophique est envisageable si l'on s'intéresse non seulement aux facteurs « externes» et « internes » qui aurait retardé l'articulation de la médecine à l'évolution, mais également aux particularités épistémologiques qui leur sont propres. Cela implique d'effectuer un bref retour vers la fin du XIXe siècle alors que la médecine devenait scientifique et que la théorie darwinienne de l'évolution se mettait en place. En distinguant les buts, méthodes et concepts mobilisés par la médecine et par la biologie de l'évolution, on réalise que ces disciplines ne portent pas tout à fait le même regard sur le vivant. Cette première approche historico-épistémologique du problème permettra de mieux comprendre pourquoi l'articulation de la médecine et de l'évolution ne va pas de soi.
vendredi 05 décembre 2008 à l'Institut Pasteur
Gary Koretzky (University of Pennsylvania)
"Signals regulating immunoreceptor and integrin activation"
jeudi 04 décembre 2008
Richard Burian (Virginia Tech University)
"Is Molecular Genetics Becoming Less Reductionistic?
Notes from recent case studies on mapping C. elegans and the discovery of microRNA"
Article
Présentation (power point)
My answer the lead question of the title of this talk is affirmative. But the point of the presentation is not simply to support this generic answer. Rather, I will explore some new findings bearing on how integrated networks regulate what genes 'do' in development – and how these understandings force geneticists to explain cellular and organismal traits and processes in ways that integrate environmental, cellular, and genetic causes. Put differently, given recent molecular findings, genetics must acknowledge diffuse causation of developmental processes and evolved phenotypes. (Part of the point: control of what genes 'do' involves parallel processing involving several distinct sorts of inputs, not just serial processing of genetic 'information'.) The result, I will argue, is a (weak) kind of (mechanistic) holism, incompatible with the strong genetic reductionism characteristic of the early days of molecular genetics. I will explore some methodological and epistemological consequences of these claims.
vendredi 21 novembre 2008
Maureen O'Malley (University of Exeter)
"Varieties of living things: Life at the intersection of lineage and metabolism"
samedi 11 0ctobre 2008
Alex Rosenberg (Duke University)
"Five challenges to genocentrism in molecular developmental genetics"
mardi 20 mai 2008
Peter Godfrey-Smith (Harvard University, Boston)
"Replication, Reproduction, and Cultural Change"
vendredi 16 mai 2008
Kim Sterelny (Australian National University, Camberra & Victoria University of Wellington)
"Evolvability Reconsidered" (my impression)
mercredi 30 avril 2008
Thomas Pradeu (IHPST)
"What is an organism?”
Elke Witt (Berlin)
“The concept and the construction of organisms”
jeudi 27 mars 2008
Philip Kitcher (John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York)
"Ethics after Darwin" (my impression)
samedi 22 mars2008
Anthony J. Steinbock (Professeur à l'Université de Carbondale, Southern Illinois University)
"L'expérience religieuse, le mysticisme et la question de l'évidence"
les jeudis, du 31 janvier au 27 mars 2008
Anne Fagot-Largeaul (Professeur du Collège de France)
"Ontologie du devenir, 2"
les mercredis, du 30 janvier au 27 février 2008
Philippe Kourilsky (Professeur du Collège de France)
"Les systèmes immunitaires dans l'évolution des espèces"
lundi 28 janvier 2008
Minus van Baalen (Directeur du laboratoire "Fonctionnement et Evolution des Systèmes Ecologiques")
"Communication et évolution de la cooperation"
lundi 28 janvier 2008
Dominique Guillo (Chercheur au laboratoire GEMAS)
"Sciences de la vie et sciences sociales : un regard historique"
jeudi 24 janvier 2008
Steeves Demazeux (doctorant à Paris1 et à l'IHPST)
"Le normal et le naturel : la médecine mentale selon Christopher Boorse"
