Thread by @yoginho

Biology in crisis! Second morning session with Carlos Sonnenschein, Ana Soto, Arnaud Pocheville, and Maël Montévil. #ISHPSSB19

Note: “SMT capitulation” in 2008–2018 😉

Ana Soto: the role of theories in biology is to provide organising principles and to construct objectivity. Also: theory determines the proper observables; the choice of observables is major theoretical commitment. #ISHPSSB19

Ana Soto: information, programs, and signals, are not proper observables for biology! Too Laplacian. Biases study of causation towards molecules, instead of integrative dynamics. #ISHPSSB19

Ana Soto: big-data approaches (“discovery-driven analysis”) to detect novel correlations “has not produced the results expected by its proponents.” #ISHPSSB19

Ana Soto: the default state of biological systems as a unifying theoretical principle: dynamical behaviour in the absence of any outside interference. Akin to inertia in classical mechanics. #ISHPSSB19

Ana Soto: the biological default state consists in cell proliferation in the presence of sufficient nutrients and environmental conditions, with variation and motility. #ISHPSSB19

Ana Soto: “nothing is more practical than a good theory.” #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: “variation is biology’s invariant.” #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: variation as a fundamental principle of biology – "a core hypothesis shaping research, supposed to be true.” #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: physics as the domain of the invariant; biology as the realm of variation. “Living systems iterate with variation (in a finite world.)” Longo et al. 2015 #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: “weak variation” – quantitative, range defined in advance; “strong variation” – qualitative variation, emergent, unpredictable. #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: consequences of strong variation – historicity (non-ergodicity), contingency (see Gould’s “rewind the tape of life” thought experiment), incompleteness/imperfection (e.g. blind spot in vertebrate retina). #ISHPSSB19

Arnaud Pocheville: “living systems are specific (i.e. singular)” (Montévil et al. 2016). Therefore, biological description is necessarily incomplete, generalisation is impossible, and biological trajectories are truly open-ended. #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: the principle of organisation in biology – if variation is ubiquitous, biological regularities become an important explanandum. #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: processes (transformations) and constraints (properties of invariance at a given scale; play a causal role with respect to process). E.g. enzymes in metabolism, vascular system. #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: principle of organisation – “constraints of an organism realise closure” (Montévil & Mossio, 2015). #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: constraints lead to departures from default behaviour (e.g. quiescence or lack of motility). Montévil et al. 2018 #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: measurement in biology always needs to be seen in organismic and historical context; biological objects have a common history, so that they behave more or less closely – but no guarantee for common constraints. #ISHPSSB19

Maël Montévil: accuracy in biology requires theories and concepts that reflect the historicity, agency, and organisation of biological objects. #ISHPSSB19