Daniel S. Brooks

(PDF) The Problem of Organization in Biology and Its Reception in Mainstream Philosophy of Science in the Mid-20th Century PDF | In the early to mid-20th century, English-speaking organicist biologists strongly advocated the idea of organization in biological phenomena as a... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...

My paper on the history of biological organization was accepted at HOPOS! The paper looks at organicist efforts in the first half of the 20th century to elevate organization in biology as a central practical and theoretical notion. #hpbio #philbio #histbio www.researchgate.net/publication/...

This paper was nine (!) years in the making, beginning as a side project about methodological disputes in philosophy of science before becoming a committed attempt to engage in a historically rich vein of conceptual theory in biology. It ended up at almost 19K words (!!).

*Or rather referred to organicist ideas as 'vitalism.'

Pushback against the organicists in mainstream philosophy of science, especially by Ernest Nagel and his student Morton Beckner, was harsh. They dismissed organization as an unspecified concept that promoted conviction over rational argument. Others like Hempel ignored organicism entirely*

(PDF) The Problem of Organization in Biology and Its Reception in Mainstream Philosophy of Science in the Mid-20th Century PDF | In the early to mid-20th century, English-speaking organicist biologists strongly advocated the idea of organization in biological phenomena as a... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...

My paper on the history of biological organization was accepted at HOPOS! The paper looks at organicist efforts in the first half of the 20th century to elevate organization in biology as a central practical and theoretical notion. #hpbio #philbio #histbio www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Devastated to hear this. His books shaped how I thought about development, evolution, history, and science in general. I corresponded with him during grad school when it was less acceptable to be a Marxist in science. His encouragement kept me in the game, and made the field seem less lonely.

@epsaphilsci.bsky.social junior scholar online series came to an end yesterday with a great talk about "How to deal with Imposter Syndrome and self doubt" by Azita Chellapo, @dsbrooks.bsky.social, @mjbuedo.bsky.social and @abigailnd.bsky.social. Thanks for the personal stories and helpful advices! 💐

We saved a baby squirrel that had overheated and was lying on the sidewalk. We gave the little guy some water and they perked right up: they climbed up on me, first on my shoulder, then decided to hang out on my head to collect themselves. After a bit they jumped off my head into a nearby tree.

DEADLINE EXTENDED to Apr 7 (midnight, CET)

For those of you who struggled with the submission system (we do to!), and those that didn't realize the deadline was on midnight **Central European Time**. 😉

Submit your motivation letter & CV at the link below:

#VeniceEvoDevo

Deadline extended to April 7th -- Please consider applying!

Deadline is TOMORROW night (Mar 31).
Not tonight, like wrongly announced at first.

And that's good news: because you get another 24hrs to apply, if you have not yet done so!

What are you waiting for!? 😉

Registration link below:

Venice Summer School 2025: Emergence & Evolution of Multi-Level Regulatory Systems Biological systems comprise multiple levels of organization , from molecules, organelles, and cells, to the multi-cellular structures that form whole tissues, organisms, and ultimately societies and …

If you're interested in theory in biology, please consider applying for this EMBO|FEBS Lecture Course "Emergence & Evolution of Multi-Level Regulatory Systems", organized by @yoginho.spore.social.ap.brid.gy, @nrepina.bsky.social, and James DiFrisco. meetings.embo.org/event/25-mul... #philsci #evobio

Promotional p;icture with the abstract of the article “Demystifying Downward Causation” by Yasmin Haddad, published in the Journal for General Philosophy of Science (JGPS).

The concept of 'downward causation' has faced many strong critiques. In her recent 📄 @yashaddad.bsky.social argues that, when adopting an interventionist view of causation and a levels of organization framework, we can explanatorily use the notion 👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #philsci #hpbio

Really looking forward to this year's EMBO|FEBS Lecture Course: Emergence & Evolution of Multi-Level Regulatory Systems in Venice this year (meetings.embo.org/event/25-mul...). Applications for participants open until 31 March! #phlsci in #evobio & #devbio

More information and updates on the lecture course will be provided by following @veniceevodevo.bsky.social as well as from the instructors (including myself!) and the organizers -- The deadline for applications is 31 March, 2025!

The course will tackle questions like how levels originate and integrate in development and evolution, what interactions exist between levels, how to measure and manipulate biological systems across multiple scales, and how to model feedback across different levels.

The venue is in Venice, Italy, and the meeting spans the whole week from 17 – 22 August 2025. Speaking from experience, these meetings are a excellent source for enduring and dynamic dialogues. This year the meeting will be feature levels of organization in #devbio, #evodevo, #evobio, and others!

Venice Summer School 2025: Emergence & Evolution of Multi-Level Regulatory Systems Biological systems comprise multiple levels of organization , from molecules, organelles, and cells, to the multi-cellular structures that form whole tissues, organisms, and ultimately societies and …

If you're interested in theory in biology, please consider applying for this EMBO|FEBS Lecture Course "Emergence & Evolution of Multi-Level Regulatory Systems", organized by @yoginho.spore.social.ap.brid.gy, @nrepina.bsky.social, and James DiFrisco. meetings.embo.org/event/25-mul... #philsci #evobio

This is an interesting and provocative new paper by DiFrisco and Gawne that critiques the agential stance in evolution in good faith. Both authors are incisive thinkers, and we should take their considerations to heart. That said, I do have some unstructured thoughts I will list below.

That is, scales do not develop or evolve, but the things that occupy scales do. Attending to scales, however, offers major benefits to characterizing levels, esp. when we ditch the expectation that levels are unidimensional loci in space-time (an expedient assumption used to criticize the notion).

For one thing, while complementary and perhaps in some sense inseparable, the terms refer to completely distinct things. Scale refers to a resolution in space or time while levels refer to classes of structures or processes that occupy these spatiotemporal resolutions.

The talk enabled me to collect my thoughts on how we should interface levels and scale, especially because it is increasingly common in philosophy to suggest replacing the use of levels with that of scale. This is completely off the mark, in my opinion:

Daniel S. Brooks - ICI Berlin Originally applied to preserve a materialist worldview that extends beyond physics and chemistry, the notion of levels of organization is one of the most recognizable ideas in biology.

I recently gave a talk at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin on how scale and levels of organization relate to one another, the talk and Q&A can be found here: www.ici-berlin.org/events/danie...

My pleasure, and pleased to digitally meet you too! I also saw your second paper that appeared this month on epistemic commitments -- this looks fantastic as well. I've been looking for good sources on this topic, and am ecstatic to see these great works come out in rapid succession.

Novikoff was an absolutely fascinating figure, and his story should be more widely known. The Holmes book is a great read in this regard.

Yes!! I'm so happy to see this! Congratulations Ann!

A strategy to what end? “The strategy of model building in population biology” in its programmatic context - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology” published by Richard Levins in 1966 has been cited over 2500 times. For a paper concerned with modeling approaches in population biology a surpri...

This is an absolutely -fantastic- paper by @zvihb.bsky.social (hi!) on Levins' 1966 Strategy article that delves into layers of rich context behind the Strategy article's place in ecology and Levins' own thinking. Truly impressive work! 🖖 link.springer.com/article/10.1...