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CATEGORIES:Departmental Seminars in History and Philosophy of
  Science
SUMMARY:How to count organisms - Ellen Clarke (All Souls C
 ollege\, Oxford)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20120223T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20120223T180000
UID:TALK35057AThttp://talks.cam.ac.uk
URL:http://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/35057
DESCRIPTION:Organisms are indispensable objects in our everyda
 y ontology and in biology. We know that counting p
 articular lumps of living matter\, and not others\
 , allows us to describe and make predictions about
  evolutionary processes. Yet we lack a theory tell
 ing us which lumps to count. In some cases the ans
 wer is obvious\; we find it easy to count piglets 
 without worrying that we have confused parts of th
 e mother with her babies. Yet once we turn to orga
 nisms which reproduce by tearing themselves in hal
 f (starfish) or growing copies of themselves at th
 e ends of their limbs (plants) our intuitions dese
 rt us. Darwin's _Origin of the Species_ describes 
 how the differential births and deaths of individu
 als produce evolutionary change. If we cannot deci
 de how to count some creatures then we cannot appl
 y our evolutionary theory to them. Do they fall ou
 tside of evolution then? Or is the intuitive organ
 ism really less obvious than we think? I present a
  novel definition of the organism which achieves a
  reconciliation of conflicting accounts by identif
 ying a common functional effect of the mechanisms 
 identified in those different accounts.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philoso
 phy of Science
CONTACT:Karin Ekholm
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