-
164There Are No Intermediate Stages: An Organizational View on DevelopmentIn Matteo Mossio (ed.), Organization in Biology, Springer. pp. 241-262. 2023.Theoretical accounts of development exhibit several internal tensions and face multiple challenges. They span from the problem of the identification of the temporal boundaries of development (beginning and end) to the characterization of the distinctive type of change involved compared to other biological processes. They include questions such as the role to ascribe to the environment or what types of biological systems can undergo development and whether they should include colonies or even eco…Read more
-
110Holobionts and the ecology of organisms: Multi-species communities or integrated individuals?Biology and Philosophy 31 (6): 875-892. 2016.It is now widely accepted that microorganisms play many important roles in the lives of plants and animals. Every macroorganism has been shaped in some way by microorganisms. The recognition of the ubiquity and importance of microorganisms has led some to argue for a revolution in how we understand biological individuality and the primary units of natural selection. The term “holobiont” was introduced as a name for the biological unit made up by a host and all of its associated microorganisms, a…Read more
-
62Mechanistic Explanation of Biological ProcessesPhilosophy of Science 82 (5): 1139-1151. 2015.Biological processes are often explained by identifying the underlying mechanisms that generate a phenomenon of interest. I characterize a basic account of mechanistic explanation and then present three challenges to this account, illustrated with examples from molecular biology. The basic mechanistic account is insufficient for explaining nonsequential and nonlinear dynamic processes, is insufficient for explaining the inherently stochastic nature of many biological mechanisms, and fails to giv…Read more
-
47Methodological Strategies in Microbiome Research and their Explanatory ImplicationsPerspectives on Science 26 (2): 239-265. 2018.. Early microbiome research found numerous associations between microbial community patterns and host physiological states. These findings hinted at community-level explanations. “Top-down” experiments, working with whole communities, strengthened these explanatory expectations. Now, “bottom-up” mechanism-seeking approaches are dissecting communities to focus on specific microbes carrying out particular biochemical activities. To understand the interplay between methodological and explanatory sc…Read more
-
26Correction to: Holobionts and the ecology of organisms: Multi-species communities or integrated individuals?Biology and Philosophy 33 (3-4): 28. 2018.In the original publication, the acknowledgment was published incorrectly. The correct version is given below.
-
20Trojan Horses and Black Queens: ‘causal core’ explanations in microbiome researchBiology and Philosophy 34 (6): 60. 2019.Lynch et al., in an article in this issue, argue that an entire microbiome is rarely, if ever, the right target of analysis for causal explanations in microbiome research. They argue, using interventionist criteria of proportionality, specificity and stability, for restricting causal claims to the smallest subset of microbes—a causal core—that generate the effect of interest. A further question remains: what kind of interactions generate a consortium of microbes that can operate as causal agents…Read more
-
11Trojan Horses and Black Queens: ‘causal core’ explanations in microbiome researchBiology and Philosophy 34 (6): 1-6. 2019.Lynch et al., in an article in this issue, argue that an entire microbiome is rarely, if ever, the right target of analysis for causal explanations in microbiome research. They argue, using interventionist criteria of proportionality, specificity and stability, for restricting causal claims to the smallest subset of microbes—a causal core—that generate the effect of interest. A further question remains: what kind of interactions generate a consortium of microbes that can operate as causal agents…Read more
The Graduate Center, CUNY
PhD, 2017
Greensboro, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Environmental Ethics |