Works in Progress (WIP)
Upcoming Presentations
Upcoming presentations will be listed as soon as they are scheduled.
Past Presentations
"Ibn al-Nafis's New Physiology”
Thursday January 27th, in the Frazee Room, 2nd floor NAB, University of King's College.
Presenter: Sina Adl, Biology, Dalhousie
"Infodynamics or managing the invisible: peculiar hazards of the information environment"
Thursday November 25th, Wilson Common Room, University of King's College.
Presenter: Cristian Suteanu, Geography, Saint Mary's University.
"The Good: Sniffer dogs finding rare species, The Bad: Coyotes misbehaving, The Ugly: Sniffer dogs finding coyotes..."
Thursday October 28th King's University College Frazee Room.
Presenter: Simon Gadbois, Psychology and Neuroscience/Canid Behaviour Lab, Dalhousie University.
Abstract: My lab conducts research with wildlife conservation canines (sniffer dogs trained to find and track species at risk) as well as sniffer dogs in other applications. We have had great success with dogs working in Kejimkujik National Park with Ribbon Snakes and Blanding's Turtles, and in the Musquodoboit Valley Watershed with Wood Turtles. We are looking into other applications, including forensic applications and also the use of dogs to avoid obtrusive and expensive field ecology procedures. For example, using dogs to help in the census of coyotes in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park: Detection, tracking, but also matching of individuals by scent can be done with dogs, avoiding the use of immobilization, trapping and blood sampling. I will be prepared to discuss completed projects, projects currently ongoing and projects in preparation and will ask the audience what they prefer to focus on.
"Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: Ibn al-Nafis and Thirteenth Century Debates over Reason and Revelation"
"Can We Talk? Metaphors of Signalling and Communication in Cell Biology"
Dalhousie's FASS/McCain Building, room 1130, 10 June, 4:30-6:00pm (please note change in time and location).
Presenter: Andrew Reynolds, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Cape Breton University.
Abstract: Cell communication and cell signaling constitutes one of the most active areas of current biological and biomedical research, covering such important topics as cancer, stem cells, and development. The trillions of cells in our bodies are capable of highly coordinated activity, scientists now like to say, because they communicate with one another; and when the signals go awry disorder and disease can result. Philosophers have devoted a great deal of attention to the language of 'information' and 'coded' communications in biology, yet this has been almost exclusively restricted to DNA and genetic systems. In this talk I want to trace the history of the metaphors of cell communication and cell signaling and draw attention to the rich philosophical questions they raise. For example, Who or what is the source of these signals? Can cells be the original source or sender of a signal? Or do they merely relay a signal (like a phone or internet cable)? While the language of cell signaling and communication appears on the surface to be very anthropomorphic, it turns out rather to be technomorphic (as I will explain); raising further questions about the application of machine metaphors to natural systems and illustrating the effectiveness of metaphors for scientific inquiry and understanding.
POSTPONED “The Role of Innate Ideas in the Work of Rene Descartes and Noam Chomsky”
Thursday March 31st
Presenter: Christina Behme, Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University
Abstract: In Cartesian Linguistics Chomsky claimed that the rediscovery of ideas from the Cartesian period would lead support to his linguistics. I argue that there are important differences between Chomsky's linguistics and a linguistics that would be based on Descartes' commitments. For Chomsky language acquisition relies on an innate domain specific language organ (LAD) that provides knowledge of syntactic principles and semantic content and accommodates the effortless language acquisition for all members of our species. For Descartes minds are indivisible and provide us with general intelligence that allows us to acquire language mainly from experience. We learn language by connecting words with their referents and remembering later which words signify which things. When we acquire language our thoughts are 'confused' and we only gain full access to innate ideas later in life. Thus Cartesian innate ideas do not accommodate effortless learning leading to uniform mastery of concepts across the species.
“Do larval traits re-evolve? Evidence from the embryogenesis of a direct-developing salamander, Plethodon cinereus”
Thursday April 28th
Presenter: Ryan Kerney, Department of Biology, Dalhousie University
Abstract: One goal of modern EvoDevo is to determine the likelihood of particular evolutionary changes, or the "evolvability" of specific traits. The paleontologist Louis Dollo (1857-1931) was among the first to define rules that constrain the evolvability of traits. The famous "Dollo’s Law" posits that, once lost in ancestor, sufficiently complex traits will not reappear in an evolutionary lineage (i.e., evolution is not reversible). Recent studies of trait evolution in a phylogenetic context challenge this claim by providing examples of complex phenotypes that were allegedly lost and then regained in single lineages. Among these is the surprising evidence for the evolutionary re-acquisition of larvae within a family of lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae). This talk will review some recent research on the developmental diversity of amphibians with a particular emphasis on how the embryology of a local species, the red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus), can shed light on features which are evolutionarily reversible and those that remain invariably lost. One goal of modern EvoDevo is to determine the likelihood of particular evolutionary changes, or the "evolvability" of specific traits. The paleontologist Louis Dollo (1857-1931) was among the first to define rules that constrain the evolvability of traits. The famous "Dollo’s Law" posits that, once lost in ancestor, sufficiently complex traits will not reappear in an evolutionary lineage (i.e., evolution is not reversible). Recent studies of trait evolution in a phylogenetic context challenge this claim by providing examples of complex phenotypes that were allegedly lost and then regained in single lineages. Among these is the surprising evidence for the evolutionary re-acquisition of larvae within a family of lungless salamanders (Plethodontidae). This talk will review some recent research on the developmental diversity of amphibians with a particular emphasis on how the embryology of a local species, the red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus), can shed light on features which are evolutionarily reversible and those that remain invariably lost.
"The role of the media in shaping the medicated children debate"
Thursday May 19th **** NOTE SPECIAL LOCATION : Room 1102 McCain Building ****
Abstract: The following paper presents data from a media content review analysis exploring the portrayal of childhood bipolar behaviour. The review asked questions regarding whether media coverage either fosters the conditions for what has become known as disease mongering, or conversely, it whether the media presents a platform of resistance. As well as exploring the specific issue of how this controversial field of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment is represented within the media, the review looked at the wider framing used to discuss what has loosely become referred to as Generation Rx. In short, how does the media frame issues around medicated children and what messages are conveyed by this framing? Whilst it would be churlish to suggest that the media holds single vision of this highly controversial issue; in time frameworks emerge which come to shape our views on whether such diagnoses are ‘real’ and subsequently whether medications are deemed necessary, un-necessary, or even socially destructive. In this it is suggested that an underlying factor concerning whether we see the medication of children as either a positive or a negative is grounded in a cultural understanding of mental health and illness? Whilst it would be churlish to suggest that individual circumstances and recognisable differences in the severity of the conditions described will not impact upon the decision to medicate; it is argued that the media provides a strong indication as to whether societal pressures will be brought to bear for or against medication. The decision as to whether to medicate – either made by parents or doctors – in part reflects whether the social stigma will outweigh any potential medical benefit. In summary, the media plays as significant a role as medical science in constructing line between what is seen as normal childhood behaviour and what is deemed to be a neurological dysfunction.
“‘Omics’ and Wilson disease (a genetic liver disease)—can they mix?”
Thursday June 23rd **** NOTE SPECIAL LOCATION : Seminar Room, NAB, University of King's College ****
Presenter: Eve Roberts, Department of Philosophy, Dalhousie University
Wilson disease is a genetic disorder of hepatic copper disposition. It is found worldwide but is quite rare, affecting approximately 30 per million population. First described in 1912, it causes cirrhosis of the liver and various patterns of degenerative neurological disease. By the 1950s it was known that the mechanism of disease had something to do with how copper is handled in the liver. In 1993 identifying the gene which is mutated in Wilson disease opened important new dimensions to studying the cell physiology of copper. Since then various systems biology strategies have been used. In order to study the network of proteins involved in handling copper inside liver cells, we developed a specialized type of proteomics, which we call ‘metalloproteomics’. Metalloproteomics is a systems approach which seeks to identify large sets of proteins associated with metals and analyze their regulation, modification, interaction, structural assembly, and function as well as their involvement in physiological processes (including development) and in disease states. In this seminar, I will review our work, mainly on the copper-metalloproteome, and the “omics” work of other researchers in the field of copper physiology. All these approaches are unstructured in the sense that they are not hypothesis-driven. This kind of scientific research poses challenges to the traditional view that scientific research requires a hypothesis in order to be an appropriate and well-organized research effort. This is an important emerging issue in philosophy of biology.
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