185 | Arvid Ågren on the Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

185 | Arvid Ågren on the Gene's-Eye View of Evolution

One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin's theory of natural selection was to help explain apparently "purposeful" or "designed" aspects of biology in a purely mechanistic theory of unguided evolution. Features are good if they help organisms survive. But should we put organisms at the center of our attention, or the genetic information that governs those features? Arvid Ågren helps us understand the attraction of the "selfish gene" view of evolution, as well as its shortcomings. This biological excursion has deep connections to philosophical issues of levels and emergence.

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Arvid Ågren received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. Previously he worked at Cornell and Harvard. His recent book is The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution.


Avsnitt(418)

110 | Neil Johnson on Complexity, Conflict, and Infodemiology

110 | Neil Johnson on Complexity, Conflict, and Infodemiology

Physicists have traditionally simplified systems as much as possible, in order to shed light on fundamental properties. But small, simple parts build up into large, complex wholes. Are there new rules...

17 Aug 20201h 23min

109 | Jason Torchinsky on Our Self-Driving Future

109 | Jason Torchinsky on Our Self-Driving Future

It's easy to foresee that technological progress will change how we live; it's much harder to anticipate exactly how. Self-driving cars represent an enormous technological challenge, but one that is p...

10 Aug 20201h 18min

108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit

108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit

We are living, in case you haven't noticed, in a world full of bullshit. It's hard to say whether the amount is truly increasing, but it seems that everywhere you look someone is trying to convince yo...

3 Aug 20201h 24min

107 | Russ Shafer-Landau on the Reality of Morality

107 | Russ Shafer-Landau on the Reality of Morality

Despite occasional and important disagreements, most people are in rough agreement about what it means to be moral, to do the right thing. There's much less agreement about why we should be moral, or ...

27 Juli 20201h 30min

106 | Stuart Bartlett on What "Life" Means

106 | Stuart Bartlett on What "Life" Means

Someday, most likely, we will encounter life that is not as we know it. We might find it elsewhere in the universe, we might find it right here on Earth, or we might make it ourselves in a lab. Will w...

20 Juli 20201h 25min

105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell

105 | Ann-Sophie Barwich on the Science and Philosophy of Smell

We gather empirical evidence about the nature of the world through our senses, and use that evidence to construct an image of the world in our minds. But not all senses are created equal; in practice,...

13 Juli 20201h 17min

104 | David Rosen and Scott Miles on the Neuroscience of Music and Creativity

104 | David Rosen and Scott Miles on the Neuroscience of Music and Creativity

Creativity is one of those things that we all admire but struggle to define or make concrete. Music provides a useful laboratory in which to examine what creativity is all about — how do people become...

6 Juli 20201h 26min

103 | J. Kenji López-Alt on Cooking As and With Science

103 | J. Kenji López-Alt on Cooking As and With Science

Cooking is art, but it's also very much science — mostly chemistry, but with important contributions from physics and biology. (Almost like a well-balanced recipe…) And I can't think of anyone better ...

29 Juni 20201h 15min

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