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SUMMARY:What is an organism? - John Dupré (University of Exeter)
DTSTART:20080508T153000Z
DTEND:20080508T170000Z
UID:TALK11565@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lauren Kassell
DESCRIPTION:Although philosophers of biology have spent considerable effor
 t problematizing such key biological concepts as the gene and the species\
 , they have generally treated the organism as fairly unproblematic. This t
 alk aims to end this complacency. Recent work on symbiosis\, especially wi
 th regard to the typical functioning of microbes in multispecies communiti
 es (biofilms) and in mutualistic relation with the more charismatic eukary
 otes that have always attracted more than their fair share of attention\, 
 suggests that the lines we draw round cooperating groups of cells to demar
 cate organisms are\, if not arbitrary\, at least underdetermined. What we 
 call an organism is a cooperative aggregation of diverse lineages\, but th
 ere is no unequivocal criterion for which of these are part of the whole. 
 Or so I shall argue.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, History and Philosophy of Science\, Department o
 f
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