Biological Interest Group

Meeting time: Friday mornings throughout the semester at 10:45.
Meeting place: Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science Conference Room,
737 Heller Hall.

The biological interest group (BIG) reads and discusses works of mutual interest in the history and philosophy of biology. We select readings for a variety of reasons: to keep up on the most exciting developments in the field, to help participants scrutinize literature relevant to their research projects (faculty or graduate student research), to provide feedback on works in progress being written by BIG participants (graduate students, faculty, and Center visitors), to revisit classic articles in the literature, and sometimes just to have fun discussing a topic related to biology.

Our meetings are informal and some participants need to arrive late or leave early because of scheduling conflicts. All faculty from the University of Minnesota and area colleges and universities and graduate students are welcome to attend whenever they would like (without invitation) and without giving advanced notice. Undergraduates are included by invitation. (If you know of an undergraduate who is well-suited and possibly interested, please contact Ken Waters so an invitation can be extended.)

Discussion Topics for Fall 2009

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September 11: "Environmental Standardization: Cure or Cause of Poor Reproducibility in Animal Experiment?" Richter et al. (2009) Nature Methods 6:257-261 (PDF)

September 18: "The Principle of Drift: Biology's First Law." Brandon, R.N. (2006) The Journal of Philosophy 102(7): 319-335 (PDF)

September 25: "Style, Function, and Cultural Evolutionary Processes" Bettinger, R.L., Boyd, R., Richerson, P.J. Chapter 8 in Darwinian Archaeologies Maschner, D.H.G. (ed) New York: Plenum, 1996 pp. 133-164 (PDF)
Chapter 1 of Testing for Cultural Transmission in the Pleistocene: The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition from the Near East to Europe Tostevin, G.B. (in preparation)(PDF)

October 2: Seminar discussion with Gil Tostevin.
Chapter. 3 of Testing for Cultural Transmission in the Pleistocene: The Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition from the Near East to Europe Tostevin, G.B. (in preparation) pp. 54-89 (starting at '3.2 Culture History as Evolutionary Process') (PDF)

October 9: Chapter 3 of Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences Emily Grosholz. Oxford University Press, 2007 (PDF)

October 16: Chapter 4 of Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences Emily Grosholz. Oxford University Press, 2007 (PDF)

October 23: Note 10 am start time BIG Seminar Discussion with Emily Grosholz

October 30: "Size, Shape, and Asymmetry in Fossil Hominins: The Status of the LB1 Cranium Based on 3D Morphometric Analyses" K. L. Baab and K.P. McNulty (2009) Journal of Human Evolution (PDF) doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.08.011

November 6: "Darwin's Achievement" Philip Kitcher (Philosophical perspective inspired by Darwin)? (PDF)

November 13: "Mind the Gap: Did Darwin Avoid Publishing his Theory for Many Years?" John van Wyhe Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2007) 61, 177–205. (PDF) doi:10.1098/rsnr.2006.0171

November 20: Readings in preparation for Joan Strassmann and David Queller visit. "Sociobiology Goes Micro: Long used for studying development, Dictyostelium now also provides a model for analyzing social interactions" Joan E. Strassmann and David C. Queller ASM News (2004) 70(11) 526–532. (PDF)
"Facultative cheater mutants reveal the genetic complexity of cooperation in social amoebae" Lorenzo A. Santorelli, Christopher R. L. Thompson, Elizabeth Villegas, Jessica Svetz, Christopher Dinh, Anup Parikh, Richard Sucgang, Adam Kuspa, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller & Gad Shaulsky, Nature (February 2008) 451(28) 1107–1111. (PDF)
"Cheater-resistance is not futile" Anupama Khare, Lorenzo A. Santorelli, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller, Adam Kuspa & Gad Shaulsky, Nature (2009) 461, 980–982 doi:10.1038/nature08472 (PDF)

December 4: Readings in preparation for Joan Strassmann and David Queller visit.
"Kin Discrimination Increases with Genetic Distance in a Social Amoeba" Elizabeth A. Ostrowsk*, Mariko Katoh, Gad Shaulsky, David C. Queller and Joan E. Strassmann, PLoS Biology (2008) 6(11): e287 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060287 (PDF) or at http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060287
"Polymorphic Members of the lag Gene Family Mediate Kin Discrimination in Dictyostelium" Rocio Benabentos, Shigenori Hirose, Richard Sucgang, Tomaz Curk, Mariko Katoh, Elizabeth A. Ostrowski, Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller, Blaz Zupan, Gad Shaulsky, and Adam Kuspa, Current Biology (2009) 19, 567–572 (PDF)
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.02.037

December 11: Note 10 am start time BIG Seminar Discussion with Joan Strassmann and David Queller on "Beyond society: the evolution of organismality" David C. Queller and Joan E. Strassmann, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2009) 364, 3143–3155
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2009.0095 (PDF)

Previous BIG discussion topics

For more information: contact Janet McKernan or Ken Waters