Organisms. Journal of Biological Sciences

The Pandemic and the 'Techno-fix'

2022-02-09T10:04:08+00:00

The current pandemic was an announced possibility. Its potential causes were known: destroyed ecosystem niches, declining biological diversity, intensive farming, abuse of genetics, and biological manipulations. This paper deals with some aspects of the biological (and social) history of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but also with the history of previous epidemics, including the AIDS epidemics, which all have in common to be highly linked, enhanced or even the result of human activities. But now, the myth is setting in that an innovative technique for fast production of vaccines is the only and sufficient response to the crisis in the ecosystem and in health structures, of which this pandemic is a symptom. The reductionist and mechanistic approaches to the ecosystem and human biology are feeding the idea that the natural world may be fully manipulated and controlled (“the power to control Evolution” as in a recent book by a Nobel Award winner). This article calls for a critical thinking about the interfaces between the technosphere and the biosphere, their limits as well as for new frameworks for biology and medicine.

Georges Canguilhem, the Health-Disease Transition and the Return of Organicism

2022-10-03T19:25:42+00:00

The Normal and the Pathological is a remarkable book by Georges Canguilhem, originally published almost 80 years ago. It should play a much more important role in medical education and in the study and praxis of biology because of its rich and relevant approach to the knowledge of organisms. Indeed, only organisms can go through sickness and health; these states are axiological categories as they represent values. However, when it was published, the molecular biology revolution introduced the idea of genetic program and that organisms would be a kind of machine or computer. This concept combined the naive 19th-century physicalism with the metaphor of programs and signals borrowed from mathematical theories of information. As a consequence, the main concepts of biology, such as teleology, agency and normativity—the latter, a central concept in Canguilhem’s thought—were abandoned by biologists and medical doctors.
Over the last 20 years, the failure of ideas guiding the molecular biology revolution allowed for the growth of organicism, a tradition committed to the autonomy of biology and its irreducibility to physics and chemistry. These developments encouraged theoretical biologists and philosophers to re-examine the aforementioned biological concepts rejected by reductionism. Their critical work produced versions of these concepts that are now compatible with notions of scientific causality, and therefore, an opportunity to present Canguilhem’s work to new generations of biologists and physicians.
Canguilhem’s work advances the understanding of biological entities by introducing the axiological notion of individuality, the concept of organismal “normativity” (i.e. the capacity of organisms to create their own norms) and, related to these two concepts, the organism’s propensity to make mistakes—an exclusive property of biological systems.

On the Meaning of Averages in Genome-wide Association Studies: What Should Come Next?

2022-07-15T15:58:26+00:00

Identifying the association between phenotypes and genotypes is the fundamental basis of genetic analyses.
Although genomic technologies used to generate data have rapidly advanced within the last 20 years, the statistical models used in genome-wide associations studies (GWAS) to analyze these data are still predominantly based on the model developed by Fisher more than 100 years ago. The question is, does Fisher’s theory need to be replaced or improved, and if so, what should come next? The theory developed by Fisher was inspired by the
field of probability. To make use of probability not only did Fisher have to assume valid a number of questionable
hypotheses, but he also had to conceptually frame genotype-phenotype associations in a specific way giving
primordial importance to the notion of average. However, the “average” in probability results from the notions
of “imprecision” or “ignorance”. After reviewing the historical emergence and societal impact of probability as
a method, it is clear what is needed now is a new method acknowledging precision in measurements. That is, a
method that does not rely on categorizing or binning data.

Old Ideas Die Hard, Particularly in Cancer Biology

2022-10-03T19:22:53+00:00

What Happens with the Mind when the Brain Dies?

2022-12-13T16:19:17+00:00

A neuroscientist reflects on his near-death experience to ponder the nature of the human mind and the survival of consciousness after death. Ancient traditions, manifold personal experiences, nuanced philosophical views, and recent scientific evidence, all point to the brain as a filter (or receiver) of consciousness rather than its fanciful producer. No doubt, good-old-fashioned materialists —nowadays rebranded as physicalists, crypto-dualists, or illusionists wearing virtual reality goggles— insist that minds are “nothing but” what brains do. Nevertheless, a trans-materialist science can expand the scope and depth of the answers (and the questions) that really matter not only to science but also to human flourishing.

The Hallmarks of Failures in Cancer Research

2022-10-21T15:33:42+00:00