Philosophy of Biology Workshop Feb 4&5

[ereshefs at ucalgary.ca]

See schedule below, and abstracts further down.
Poster attached.


February 4 & 5  Philosophy of Biology Workshop
In Social Science 1253

Friday, February 4
4:00 – 6:00 pm,  Laura Franklin-Hall, Philosophy, NYU
                "The Emperor's New Mechanisms: A Critique of Mechanistic
                  Explanation"

Saturday, February 5
10:30- 12:30   Jonathan Kaplan, Philosophy, Oregon State University
                 "The Constructions and Biologies of Race"

1:30-3:30      Sharyn Clough, Philosophy, Oregon State University
                 "Gender, Germs, and Dirt: A Case Study of Properly
                  Politicized Science"

4:00- 6:00      Eric Desjardins, Philosophy, University of
                   Western Ontario
                  "Irreversibility and Path Dependence in Evolutionary
                   Biology"

Abstracts:

The Emperor’s New Mechanisms
Laura Franklin-Hall
There has been a recent surge in interest in mechanisms in the philosophy
of science. It is often suggested that an account of the nature of
mechanisms can ground an approach to scientific explanation appropriate
for the life sciences. I argue here that this excitement about mechanisms
is misplaced. This is not because the ‘mechanistic approach’ is false, but
rather because, as developed to date, it is (largely) vapid. To show this,
I outline three problems on which an account of mechanisms might shed
light: the nature of causation, explanatory relevance, and the proper
grain of explanation. I then show that the mechanistic approach cannot
help with any of these problems. I conclude with some diagnoses of the
mechanistic project, indicating why it has appeared attractive despite its
vacuity and how mechanism-friendly philosophers might pursue their
projects more productively.


The Social and Biological Realities of Race
Jonathan Kaplan
Recently, some researchers have argued that contemporary population
genetics has shown that human races, as they are ordinarily understood,
are biologically real entities, and hence that ‘race’ is a biological, and
not only (or even primarily) a social, concept.  This, these researchers
suggest, implies that a focus on e.g. health disparities between socially
recognized races that fails to take seriously the genetic differences
between the populations is doomed to  failure, and that arguments against
e.g. the existence of ‘biological’ differences in average intelligence
between ‘races’ are, at best,
inadequate. But these kinds of claims are deeply misleading. The argument
that population genetics can vindicate the claim that human  races, as
they are ordinarily understood, are biologically real entities relies on
multiple misunderstandings. To see this, it is important to get clear
about just what contemporary population genetics has revealed about the
distribution of genetic differences in humans, and about what those who
deny the biological reality of human races are denying.  In the end, I
will argue, genetic differences are not what account for the folk-racial
categories in use today, and,
despite recent research sometimes taken to imply otherwise, folk-racial
categories –which remain of fundamental importance to  people’s
life-prospects –remain primarily social categories.


Gender, Germs, and Dirt: A Case Study of Properly Politicised Science
Sharyn Clough
The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation,
well-established in the industrialised nations of North and West, between
increased hygiene and sanitation, and increased rates of asthma and
allergies. Recent studies have added to the scope of the hypothesis,
showing a link between decreased exposure to certain bacteria and
parasitic worms, and increased rates of intestinal inflammatory diseases.
What remains less-often discussed in the research on these links is that
women have higher rates than men, of asthma, allergies, and auto-immune,
and inflammatory disorders generally. I argue that differential gender
socialisation can help account for this pattern. That standards of
cleanliness are higher for girls than boys, especially under the age of
five when children are more likely to be under close adult supervision, is
a robust phenomenon in industrialised nations of the North and West, and
some studies point to a cross-cultural pattern. I present the feminist
political commitments that make the link between gender and the hygiene
hypothesis salient. Finally, I argue that by making the link between
gender and hygiene visible, these feminist political commitments do not
bias the immunological and epidemiological research. Instead, insofar as
the research supports the hygiene hypothesis, the political commitments I
prescribe have the effect of increasing the empirical adequacy of that
research, specifically by reconceiving of relevant sources of evidence,
responding to current puzzles in the research, and opening up further
avenues for study.

Irreversibility and Path Dependence in Evolutionary Biology
Eric Desjardins
What does it mean to say that history matters in evolution? For some, like
the biologist Eörs Szathmary, it means that evolution is "path dependent''
and entails "irreversibility." However,  “irreversibility” possesses many
faces, and I will argue that not all of them agree with “path dependence.”
So, defining path dependence in terms of irreversibility could be
problematic. I propose an account of "path dependence" that does not rely
on irreversibility, and I explore its relationship with two forms of
irreversibility arising in evolutionary processes: 1) the entropic-like
irreversibility that follows from Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural
selection and 2) the (contingent) irreversibility endorsed by the Belgian
paleontologist Louis Dollo. I will show how the latter is the form that
more naturally co-exists with path dependence, but that we should not
conceive this relationship as necessary.







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