Supervenience and Reduction in Biological Hierarchies

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 209-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Collier
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Biological Theory ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Reductive Explanation ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Explanatory Relevance

Supervenience is a relationship which has been used recently to explain the physical determination of biological phenomena despite resistance to reduction (Rosenberg, 1978, 1985; Sober, 1984a). Supervenience, however, is plagued by ambiguities which weaken its explanatory value and obscure some interesting aspects of reduction in biology. Although I suspect that similar considerations affect the use of supervenience in ethics and the philosophy of mind, I don’t intend anything I have to say here to apply outside of the physical and biological cases I consider.The main point of this paper is that there is a property of biological systems which makes it both misleading and inappropriate to reduce central biological phenomena to the properties of underlying components. Despite this, reductive explanation has been a major source of innovation in biological theory. The apparent tension can be resolved if underlying properties are explanatorily relevant to the higher level phenomena even though the latter are not strictly reducible to the former. Supervenience, I will argue, is not robust enough to deny reduction while supporting explanatory relevance.

Transmission Electron Microscopy of Protein Macromolecules

1971 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 424-425
Author(s):  
Henry S. Slayter
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems ◽  
Metal Vapor ◽  
Resolving Power ◽  
Electron Microscopic ◽  
Chemical Methods ◽  
Molecular Weights ◽  
The Past ◽  
Physical Chemical ◽  
Transmission Electron

Electron microscopic methods have been applied increasingly during the past fifteen years, to problems in structural molecular biology. Used in conjunction with physical chemical methods and/or Fourier methods of analysis, they constitute powerful tools for determining sizes, shapes and modes of aggregation of biopolymers with molecular weights greater than 50, 000. However, the application of the e.m. to the determination of very fine structure approaching the limit of instrumental resolving power in biological systems has not been productive, due to various difficulties such as the destructive effects of dehydration, damage to the specimen by the electron beam, and lack of adequate and specific contrast. One of the most satisfactory methods for contrasting individual macromolecules involves the deposition of heavy metal vapor upon the specimen. We have investigated this process, and present here what we believe to be the more important considerations for optimizing it. Results of the application of these methods to several biological systems including muscle proteins, fibrinogen, ribosomes and chromatin will be discussed.

Fluorescence chemosensors for hydrogen sulfide detection in biological systems

The Analyst ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 140 (6) ◽  
pp. 1772-1786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi Guo ◽  
Guiqiu Chen ◽  
Guangming Zeng ◽  
Zhongwu Li ◽  
Anwei Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydrogen Sulfide ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Sulfate Reducing Bacteria ◽  
Fluorescence Sensing ◽  
Sulfate Reducing ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Reducing Bacteria

The development of H2S fluorescence-sensing strategies and their potential applications in the determination of sulfate-reducing bacteria activity.

W. T. Astbury and Ross G. Harrison: the search for the molecular determination of form in the developing embryo

1980 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-219 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Limb Bud ◽  
Amphibian Embryo ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
Biology I ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Molecular Patterns ◽  
Molecular Determination

Amongst the Fellows elected to the Royal Society in 1941 were W. T. Astbury for his studies using X-ray analysis to study the structures of natural fibres, and amongst the Foreign Members elected that year was Ross G. Harrison for his contributions to embryology. Astbury and Harrison were very different in temperament, and worked in very different fields on either side of the Atlantic, yet they were united in their approach to the study of biological phenomena. Both Astbury and Harrison believed that the organization and form of biological materials whether wool fibres or the limb-bud in an amphibian embryo depended on molecular structure and pattern. Moreover both were concerned with dynamic aspects of form; Astbury’s greatest achievement was to demonstrate the dynamic, reversible folding and stretching of proteins in the k-m-e-f group, and Harrison looked to changing molecular patterns to account for changing symmetries in the developing embryo. It was this common approach that brought them together and led to Harrison spending a brief month in Leeds where they and K. M. Rudall performed what have been described as ‘truly progressive experiments in molecular biology’. I believe this short series of experiments illuminates the character and work of both Harrison and Astbury and illustrates the difficulties, practical and conceptual, in carrying out ‘progressive experiments’. I shall begin by reviewing briefly the embryological background of the time before going on to discuss in detail the approaches of Harrison and Astbury to their work and the outcome of their collaboration.

Modification of the Stewart biphasic colorimetric assay for stable and accurate quantitatitive determination of Pluronic and Tetronic block copolymers for application in biological systems

2007 ◽  
Vol 361 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Othman Al-Hanbali ◽  
Nneka M. Onwuzo ◽  
Kenneth J. Rutt ◽  
Christopher M. Dadswell ◽  
S. Moein Moghimi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Block Copolymers ◽  
Colorimetric Assay ◽  
Biological Systems

Editor's Introduction

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
D. M. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Intentional Content ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Cognitive Ethology ◽  
Royal Institute ◽  
Biological Phenomena ◽  
The Mind

The papers collected in this volume are the proceedings of the 1999 Royal Institute of Philosophy conference: the theme of the conference, the same as the title of this collection, Naturalism, Evolution and Mind. The essays collected here cover a wide array of disparate themes in philosophy, psychology, evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science. They range in subject matter from the mind/body problem and the nature of philosophical naturalism, to the naturalization of psychological norms to the naturalization of phenomenal and intentional content, from the methodology cognitive ethology to issues in evolutionary psychology. They are united by the simple thought that the great promise of current naturalism in philosophy of mind resides in its potential to reveal mental phenomena as continuous with other phenomena of the natural world, particularly with other biological phenomena.

The determination of inorganic orthophosphate in biological systems

1973 ◽  
Vol 320 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Atkinson ◽  
A.D. Gatenby ◽  
A.G. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems

Address of the President Lord Blackett, O.M., C.H. at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1970

1971 ◽  
Vol 177 (1046) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Keyword(s):  
Natural Products ◽  
Nucleic Acid ◽  
Nucleic Acids ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Dimensional Structure ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Three Dimensional Structure ◽  
Subsequent Determination

Todd has made highly significant contributions to the chemistry of natural products, in particular in relation to compounds which play important roles in biological systems. His researches on vitamins B 1 , E and B 12 were most elegant and have had far-reaching implications, but none more so than his structural and synthetic studies in the nucleic acid field. Here he developed methods for the synthesis of the nucleosides and for their phosphorylation; his work on the way they are combined made possible the subsequent determination of the three-dimensional structure of the nucleic acids thereby providing the basis for much of the exciting activity in the nucleotide field today. Todd’s achievements arise out of a rare combination of theoretical knowledge and outstanding experimental skill, with the most judicious exploitation of modern techniques. His work and his quality as an investigator have been widely recognized by biologists as well as by organic chemists.

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