scholarly journals THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN BIOENGINEERING

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-33
Author(s):  
Ibrahim A. Shogar
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Green Technology ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
Scientists And Engineers ◽  
Research And Education

This paper investigates the philosophical foundations of modern bioengineering to articulate its ethical framework. Engineering as an ultimate mechanism to transform knowledge into practice is essential for both physical and biological sciences. It reduces data, concepts, and designs to pictorial forms. The integration of engineering with the newly emerging biosciences, has presented a unique opportunity to overcome the major challenges that face the environmental and human health. To harness potentials of bioengineering and establish a sustainable foundation for green technology, modern scientists and engineers need to be acquainted with the normative questions of science. In addition to acquiring the general principles of scientific research and identifying the intrinsic goals of the endeavour, philosophy of bioengineering exposes bioengineers to both the descriptive ‘how’ questions of the physical world as well as the normative ‘why’ questions of values. Such an interdisciplinary approach is significant, not only for inspiring to acquire the genuine knowledge of the existing world, but also to expose the bioengineers to their ethical and social responsibilities. Besides introducing the conceptual framework of bioengineering, this paper has investigated the three major philosophies that have been dominating the theoretical presuppositions of scientific research method in history. Namely, (i) Systems biology approach; (ii) Evolutionary biology approach; and (iii) Mechanical view approach. To establish the ethical foundation of modern bioengineering, the paper, also has conducted an analytical study on various branches of the emerging discipline of bioscience.The paper has concluded that adopting the interdisciplinary approach in research and education is essential to harness potentials of bioengineering and to establish foundations of green technology. To achieve the final objectives of bioengineering, both the practical and theoretical knowledge of values must be acquired. The former is essential for invention and innovation; meanwhile the later exposes bioengineers to the integrated discipline of knowledge and values. 

scholarly journals Evolutionary systems theory: concepts and schools in international relations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Karl Rennstich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Statistical Physics ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Evolutionary Systems ◽  
Cognitive Limitations ◽  
Structural Capacity

As an interdisciplinary approach, evolutionary systems theory borrows from fields such as statistical physics, evolutionary biology as well as economics and others to build on their insights from studies of environments — as systems — and the behavior of actors within those environments — their agency. It provides a bridge between existing and divergent but related strings of research of particular systemic elements as a unifying macro-theory of our social and physical world, fusing multiple approaches into a common model. The unifying key is the focus on the behavior of agents (e.g., individuals; groups; cities; states; world systems) as it relates to the environment (both natural and social) in which these agents act and the feedback between behavior and environment. Evolutionary systems approaches can broadly be placed into two categories: (1) the biobehavioral and (2) the socialevolutionary approach to the study of international relations with the help of evolutionary theory. The point of evolutionary explanations is not to make the case that humans are incapable of making their own choices —far from it, learning and selection are critical elements of human agency in evolutionary models. Rather, evolutionary systems theory also includes in its models the structural capacity to make those choices, which derives from and depends on previous choices made, a process that is also bound by our biological evolution or alternatively by our cognitive limitations and available selection mechanisms, regardless of the relative complexity of human learning capacity.

scholarly journals Evolutionary Systems Theory: Concepts and Schools in International Relations

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim K. Rennstich
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Statistical Physics ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Evolutionary Systems ◽  
Cognitive Limitations ◽  
Structural Capacity

As an interdisciplinary approach, evolutionary systems theory borrows from fields such as statistical physics and evolutionary biology, as well as economics and others, to build on their insights from studies of environments—as systems—and the behavior of actors within those environments—their agency. It provides a bridge between existing and divergent but related strings of research of particular systemic elements as a unifying macro-theory of our social and physical world, fusing multiple approaches into a common model. The unifying key is the focus on the behavior of agents (e.g., individuals, groups, cities, states, world systems) as it relates to the environment (both natural and social) in which these agents act and the feedback between behavior and environment. Evolutionary systems approaches can broadly be placed into two categories: the biobehavioral and the social-evolutionary approaches to the study of international relations with the help of evolutionary theory. The point of evolutionary explanations is not to make the case that humans are incapable of making their own choices—far from it. Learning and selection are critical elements of human agency in evolutionary models. Rather, evolutionary systems theory also includes in its models the structural capacity to make those choices, which derives from and depends on previous choices made, a process also bound by our biological evolution or alternatively by our cognitive limitations and available structural selection mechanisms, regardless of the relative complexity of human learning capacity.

scholarly journals Broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality: individual differences, uniqueness and temporality

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie I. Kaiser ◽  
Rose Trappes
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Research Group ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Biological Individuality ◽  
Problem Agenda

AbstractBiological individuality is a notoriously thorny topic for biologists and philosophers of biology. In this paper we argue that biological individuality presents multiple, interconnected questions for biologists and philosophers that together form a problem agenda. Using a case study of an interdisciplinary research group in ecology, behavioral and evolutionary biology, we claim that a debate on biological individuality that seeks to account for diverse practices in the biological sciences should be broadened to include and give prominence to questions about uniqueness and temporality. We show that broadening the problem agenda of biological individuality draws attention to underrecognized philosophical issues and discussions and thereby organizes and enriches the existing debate.

The Foundations of Science in the Research of the Russian Scientist Vyacheslav Semenovich Styopin

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Nikoleta Mihaleva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Russian Scientist ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The World ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Methodological Reflection ◽  
Number Of Authors

The focus of the article is a philosophical and methodological reflection of V.S. Styopin on three main components of the foundations of science: ideals and norms of scientific research, the scientific picture of the world and the philosophical foundations of science. Each of them, in turn, has a rather complex internal structure. Therefore, the task of the article is not limited to the development of perceptions of these three "blocks" of foundations, which has been thoroughly achieved by a number of authors, including Styopin, but mainly to what extent these grounds express important values and goals and dimensions of science.

Misconduct and the Development of Ethics in the Biological Sciences

1994 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Joel Reiser
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Scientific Misconduct ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Selective Approach ◽  
Practice Of Medicine ◽  
Ethical Choices ◽  
The 1960S

A variety of cases of scientific misconduct have been documented since the 1980s among biological scientists. These cases have focused the attention of the public and scientific community on this behavior and made it the centerpiece of the concern about ethics in the biological sciences. In contrast, the ethics movement in clinical medicine, which arose in the 1960s, was not basically directed at the problems of wrong-doing. Instead it concentrated on the difficult ethical choices that had to be made In the practice of medicine.In this essay, I discuss the two movements. The attention given to misconduct In the biological sciences has become excessive and diverts its ethics movement from exploring and teaching about the difficult ethical decisions scientists must make in weighing obligations to self, science, and society. A more balanced and selective approach to developing an ethical framework in the biological sciences is needed.

On the construction of the concept ‘language’: Entrenched Conceptual Integration Networks Encountered in Evolutionary Biology and Studies of Language Evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn M Frank
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Conceptual Integration Theory

<p>In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate.&nbsp;Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.</p><p>In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate. Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology. The document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries.</p>

Developmental biology and human evolution

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. e2
Author(s):  
Jeffrey H. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Population Genetics ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Molecular Change ◽  
Human Fossil ◽  
Evolutionary Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Organismal Development ◽  
Taxic Diversity

The Evolutionary or Modern Evolutionary Synthesis (here identified as the Synthesis) has been portrayed as providing the foundation for uniting a supposed disarray of biological disciplines through the lens of Darwinism fused with population genetics. Rarely acknowledged is that the Synthesis’s success was also largely due to its architects’ effectiveness in submerging British and German attempts at a synthesis by uniting the biological sciences through shared evolutionary concerns. Dobzhansky and Mayr imposed their bias toward population genetics, population (as supposedly opposed to typological) thinking, and Morgan’s conception of specific genes for specific features (here abbreviated as genes for) on human evolutionary studies. Dobzhansky declared that culture buffered humans from the whims of selection. Mayr argued that as variable as humans are now, their extinct relatives were even more variable; thus the human fossil did not present taxic diversity and all known fossils could be assembled into a gradually changing lineage of time-successive species. When Washburn centralized these biases in the new physical anthropology the fate of paleoanthropology as a non-contributor to evolutionary theory was sealed. Molecular anthropology followed suit in embracing Zuckerkandl and Pauling’s assumption that molecular change was gradual and perhaps more importantly continual. Lost in translation was and still is an appreciation of organismal development. Here I will summarize the history of these ideas and their alternatives in order to demonstrate assumptions that still need to be addressed before human evolutionary studies can more fully participate in what is a paradigm shift-in-the-making in evolutionary biology.

Towards a History of Biology in the Twentieth Century: Directed Autobiographies as Historical Sources

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Russell
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
History Of Biology ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Darwinian Revolution ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Relative Neglect ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientists And Engineers

Interest in contemporary scientific history has concentrated on physics and engineering and its most obvious growth has been in America. By contrast, there has been a relative neglect of the biological sciences, especially in Great Britain. This concern with contemporary scientific history has been an autonomous growth among physical scientists and engineers. There has not yet been any significant development of an historical dimension among modern biologists. Most of those who do study the history of biology are concerned with natural history in the nineteenth century and before, with the largest group concentrating on the Darwinian Revolution. Students of the history of twentieth century biology are just beginning to emerge, but may find themselves uniquely disadvantaged compared with observers of the sciences from earlier centuries, or even of the physical sciences and engineering in the twentieth century, unless certain things are done rather quickly.

Adaptation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan B. Losos
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

Adaptation—the fit of organisms to their environments—has been a central focus in scientific research for centuries, predating even the rise of evolutionary biology. At its core, the study of adaptation is the study of natural selection—how is it that populations become so well suited to survive and reproduce in the environment in which they occur? Nonetheless, the topic of adaptation has many wrinkles and nuances. Even the definition of adaptation is not agreed on by all. The manner in which adaptations evolve (or fail to evolve) and the consequences they have for the evolutionary history of a lineage have been the subjects of considerable scientific research and discussion for more than a century.

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