Stefan Linquist: Genome-Level Ecology
25 March 2022, 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm EDT
Join the Rotman Synthetic Biology Reading Group for a meeting with Stefan Linquist for a discussion of his research on genome-level ecology. Individuals interested in attending the talk need not participate in the reading group, but will need to register in advance. This will be a hybrid event with in-person or virtual attendance options.
Readings:
This session will focus on a draft paper: Linquist, S. Breaking news from genome-level ecology: Not everything that is a Darwinian individual should be scientifically regarded as such.
For background on transposable element ecology, this paper is also suggested for further reading: Linquist S, Saylor B, Cottenie K, Elliott TA, Kremer SC, Gregory TR. Distinguishing ecological from evolutionary approaches to transposable elements. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2013 Aug;88(3):573-84. doi: 10.1111/brv.12017. Epub 2013 Jan 24. PMID: 23347261.
Speaker Profile:
Stefan Linquist is an associate professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Guelph. He is a philosopher of biology with research interests in ecology, genomics, evolution, and psychology. Much of his work is at the interface between these disciplines. Despite the diversity of these pursuits some common themes unify his work. Philosophically, he is a naturalist. He take this to mean that philosophical reasoning should be informed by the best available scientific theories and results. However, he also considers it the job of philosophy to challenge science. For example, his work on innateness in psychology, on contingency in ecology, and on function in genomics challenges the ways that some scientists employ these concepts.