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Organisms are not machines (Ep 82)
Manage episode 325619015 series 1941323
Why shouldn’t we think of living things as machines? What is and what isn’t an organism?
In this episode, we talk to Dan Nicholson, a philosopher and biologist from George Mason University about his new edited volume, "Everything Flows: Toward a Processual Philosophy of Biology". In it, he and colleagues argue that biological systems more resemble flames and tornadoes and other dynamically stable systems than clocks or other human-designed things. Dan thinks that life is better understood as flows of energy and matter, which means that trying to reduce biological things into smaller parts, a popular practice in biology known as reductionism, will ultimately fail because it misses the stream-like nature of life. In the show today, we discuss these ideas, what Dan calls a processual philosophy for biology, including what it means for evolution, medicine, and more.
Cover art: Keating Shahmehri
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bigbiology/support154 odcinków
Manage episode 325619015 series 1941323
Why shouldn’t we think of living things as machines? What is and what isn’t an organism?
In this episode, we talk to Dan Nicholson, a philosopher and biologist from George Mason University about his new edited volume, "Everything Flows: Toward a Processual Philosophy of Biology". In it, he and colleagues argue that biological systems more resemble flames and tornadoes and other dynamically stable systems than clocks or other human-designed things. Dan thinks that life is better understood as flows of energy and matter, which means that trying to reduce biological things into smaller parts, a popular practice in biology known as reductionism, will ultimately fail because it misses the stream-like nature of life. In the show today, we discuss these ideas, what Dan calls a processual philosophy for biology, including what it means for evolution, medicine, and more.
Cover art: Keating Shahmehri
--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bigbiology/support154 odcinków
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