The Biological Trait Concept and Character Identity Mechanisms

null, Alan Love (University of Minnesota)

The Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh invites you to join us for our 64th Annual Lecture Series Talk. Attend in person or visit our live stream on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.

The Annual Lecture Series, the Center’s oldest program, was established in 1960, the year when Adolf Grünbaum founded the Center. Each year the series consists of six lectures, about three quarters of which are given by philosophers, historians, and scientists from other universities. 

ALS Speaker – Alan C. Love

November 17 @ 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm EST

Title:  The Biological Trait Concept and Character Identity Mechanisms

Abstract:

Biologists frequently talk about characters, traits, features, phenotypes, and parts to pick out those aspects of cells, organisms, and populations they want to investigate. However, they accomplish this in diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory ways, and the theoretical question of what constitutes a biological trait is relatively neglected. Although it is unsurprising that there is no shared background theory about traits given the heterogeneous landscape of the life sciences, I argue that this is to be expected and there is more than one legitimate answer to what a trait is. In this respect, “trait” is on solid footing with other biological concepts that have several non-arbitrary interpretations and display multiple roles across different contexts (e.g., gene, homology, and species). In service of advancing theory on this theme, I outline the character identity mechanism framework and demonstrate how it yields increased contrastive resolution and novel predictions for comparative mechanistic biology. As a result, it addresses a challenge formulated by David Hull more than fifty years ago: “philosophers could have been of some service to biologists [by answering] the question—what is a character?”

This talk will also be available live streamed on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRp47ZMXD7NXO3a9Gyh2sg.