Modularity and Mereology (original) (raw)
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THOM, GOULD AND THE MORPHOLOGICAL TRADITION IN SCIENCE
After the death of Stephen J. Gould and René Thom, this paper recalls their contribution to biological theory from each of their theoretical positions, with special attention to their maintenance of the morphological tradition within biological thought i n a century dominated by the evolutionary synthesis. Thom's contribution is reviewed in his application of mathematical models to morphogenesis and his insertion of mathematics into biological reality itself. As a leading evolutionary theorist, the review of Gould goes beyond his relationship with the morphological tradition to address the main points of his conception of evolution as a biologist, historian and philosopher of science.
The Epistemology of Development, Evolution, and Genetics
The last fifteen years have seen an ongoing synthesis among developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and molecular genetics. 2 A new discipline, "evolutionary developmental biology," is forcing biologists to reconceive evolutionary history, evolutionary processes, and the ways in which animals are constructed. In this chapter I examine some work bearing on how animals (including humans) are put together. A key claim is that evolution deploys ancient modular processes and tinkers with multi-leveled modular parts, many also ancient, yielding organisms whose relationships, because of modular construction, are far more complex and interesting than had been suspected until very recently. For example, all segmented animals share regulatory machinery that demarcates and specifies identities of body segments and switches on the formation of some organs, e.g., eyes. Some processes, bits of machinery, and parts are recycled and reused repeatedly, both in evolution and in development of a single animal. Such claims require major rethinking of how animals are put together and raise issues about howand the extent to which-animals are harmoniously integrated. Our understanding of how synchronic and sequential developmental processes are controlled to yield an organism is still far from complete. We do not yet understand the philosophical implications of this new work, but I suggest that they include a limited, non-vitalist form of holism.
Part I: A short comment from a biologist
Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 1997
I-Bins-Cees Speel Many biologists have written on issues of cultural evolution from the "memetic" point of view. The startingYpoint for their theories is the definition of both gene and meme as replicators. If we indeed value new cl~si~cations and theories more when they are connected to other, generally accepted theories, then cultural evolutionary theories which include memetic views have power. Evolutionary theories in biological sciences are accepted, and the memetic view is strongly analogous to the structure of those theories. However, memetics camtot grow without serious attention from non-biologists studying cultural evolution. Therefore, I was happy to see William Benzon's essay integrating the memetics view on cultural evolution with views from other disciplines. Benzon's article focuses on cultural evolution, drawing examples from biological evolution for comparison. In this short comment, I shall present ideas formed in biological theory with regard to the memegene analogy. My reply concerns four issues: (1) I will negate the statement that biologists agree that classification should reflect phylogeny. (2) I will comment on the examples Benzon uses with respect to biological evolution. I will argue that the view that only species can be considered evolutionary systems is too limited. (3) I will expand on the use of the concept of meme as a replicator, exploring concepts of the meme as an interactor and a selective retention system. (4) I will reply to Benzon's view on the genotype-phenotype concept. I will argue that his use of these concepts is incompatible with the replicator view as used in biology. (5) A final remark concerns the comparison Benzon makes between the complexity of cultural and biological evolutionary systems.
Homologues, natural kinds and the evolution of modularity
1996
Abstract The fact that phenotypic evolution can be studied on a character by character basis suggests that the body is composed of locally integrated units. These units can be considered as modular parts of the body which integrate functionally related characters into units of evolutionary transformation. These units may either emerge spontaneously by self-organization, or may be the product of natural selection.
Barbieri M (2009) A Short History of Biosemiotics
2009
Biosemiotics is the synthesis of biology and semiotics, and its main purpose is to show that semiosis is a fundamental component of life, i.e., that signs and meaning exist in all living systems. This idea started circulating in the 1960s and was proposed independently from enquires taking place at both ends of the Scala Naturae. At the molecular end it was expressed by Howard Pattee's analysis of the genetic code, whereas at the human end it took the form of Thomas Sebeok's investigation into the biological roots of culture. Other proposals appeared in the years that followed and gave origin to different theoretical frameworks, or different schools, of biosemiotics. They are: (1) the physical biosemiotics of Howard Pattee and its extension in Darwinian biosemiotics by Howard Pattee and by Terrence Deacon, (2) the zoosemiotics proposed by Thomas Sebeok and its extension in sign biosemiotics developed by Thomas Sebeok and by Jesper Hoffmeyer, (3) the code biosemiotics of Marcello Barbieri and (4) the hermeneutic biosemiotics of Anton Markoš. The differences that exist between the schools are a consequence of their different models of semiosis, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. In reality they go much deeper and concern the very nature of the new discipline. Is biosemiotics only a new way of looking at the known facts of biology or does it predict new facts? Does biosemiotics consist of testable hypotheses? Does it add anything to the history of life and to our understanding of evolution? These are the major issues of the young discipline, and the purpose of the present paper is to illustrate them by describing the origin and the historical development of its main schools.