SEMF | David Krakauer | How Darwinians Count the World | NUMEROUS NUMEROSITY 2021 @SEMF | Uploaded September 2021 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
Plenary session kindly contributed by David Krakauer in SEMF's 2021 Numerous Numerosity: semf.org.es/numerosity
SESSION ABSTRACT
The history of evolutionary thought might be described as the development of theories that help us count living things. In the natural world questions of numerosity are therefore closely related to the challenges of classification. When we ask how many animals or trees there are do we mean individuals, species, families, or some other level of description? Before Darwin naturalists counted using phenotypic traits and after Darwin they used phylogenetic trees. We still do not agree on the fundamental units of numerosity. I shall discuss arguments from counting nature that resemble arguments about counting in mathematics and physics related to parsimony, forces and fields, and disputes about the role of unified theories. I shall end by describing the challenges related to counting individuals necessary for defining life.
SESSION MATERIALS
· What Is an Individual? (quantamagazine.org/what-is-an-individual-biology-seeks-clues-in-information-theory-20200716/)
· The Information Theory of Individuality (link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00313-7)
· The Challenges and Scope of Theoretical Biology (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519311000774?via%3Dihub)
DAVID KRAKAUER
Santa Fe Institute: https://www.santafe.edu/
Santa Fe Institute profile: https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/david-krakauer
Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Krakauer_(scientist)
ResearchGate: researchgate.net/profile/David-Krakauer-2
Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?user=R-K-FOwAAAAJ&hl=es
SEMF NETWORKS
Website: semf.org.es
Twitter: twitter.com/semf_nexus
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/semf-nexus
Instagram: instagram.com/semf.nexus
Facebook: facebook.com/semf.nexus
Plenary session kindly contributed by David Krakauer in SEMF's 2021 Numerous Numerosity: semf.org.es/numerosity
SESSION ABSTRACT
The history of evolutionary thought might be described as the development of theories that help us count living things. In the natural world questions of numerosity are therefore closely related to the challenges of classification. When we ask how many animals or trees there are do we mean individuals, species, families, or some other level of description? Before Darwin naturalists counted using phenotypic traits and after Darwin they used phylogenetic trees. We still do not agree on the fundamental units of numerosity. I shall discuss arguments from counting nature that resemble arguments about counting in mathematics and physics related to parsimony, forces and fields, and disputes about the role of unified theories. I shall end by describing the challenges related to counting individuals necessary for defining life.
SESSION MATERIALS
· What Is an Individual? (quantamagazine.org/what-is-an-individual-biology-seeks-clues-in-information-theory-20200716/)
· The Information Theory of Individuality (link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00313-7)
· The Challenges and Scope of Theoretical Biology (sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519311000774?via%3Dihub)
DAVID KRAKAUER
Santa Fe Institute: https://www.santafe.edu/
Santa Fe Institute profile: https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/david-krakauer
Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Krakauer_(scientist)
ResearchGate: researchgate.net/profile/David-Krakauer-2
Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?user=R-K-FOwAAAAJ&hl=es
SEMF NETWORKS
Website: semf.org.es
Twitter: twitter.com/semf_nexus
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/semf-nexus
Instagram: instagram.com/semf.nexus
Facebook: facebook.com/semf.nexus
