Robert C. Robinson

The release of AlphaFold2 (AF2), a deep‐learning‐aided, open‐source protein structure prediction program, from DeepMind, opened a new era of molecular biology. The astonishing improvement in the accuracy of the structure predictions provides the opportunity to characterize protein systems from uncultured Asgard archaea, key organisms in evolutionary biology. Despite the accumulation in metagenomics‐derived Asgard archaea eukaryotic‐like protein sequences, limited structural and biochemical information have restricted the insight in their potential functions. In this review, we focus on profilin, an actin‐dynamics regulating protein, which in eukaryotes, modulates actin polymerization through (1) direct actin interaction, (2) polyproline binding, and (3) phospholipid binding. We assess AF2‐predicted profilin structures in their potential abilities to participate in these activities. We demonstrate that AF2 is a powerful new tool for understanding the emergence of biological functional traits in evolution.

The term “environmental justice” carries with it a sort of ambiguity. On the one hand, it refers to a movement of social activism in which those involved fight and argue for fairer, more equitable distribution of environmental goods and equal treatment of environmental duties. This movement is related to, and ideally informed by, the second use of the term, which refers to the academic discipline associated with legal regulations and theories of justice and ethics with regard to sustainability, the environment, and ecology. It is this latter, more academic—though vast and interdisciplinary—use of the term that is the subject of this essay. However, activists who pay careful attention to the arguments offered with regard to the political, legal, social, and philosophical treatments of these issues are potentially in a stronger position with regard to their own social movement. In that way, the two uses of the term may progress hand in hand. More broadly, however, the foundational claim about which both grassroots activists and legal, ethical, and policy advocates can agree is that environmental burdens—climate change, pollution, and their associated health risks—are borne disproportionately by the poorest and most vulnerable populations, and tend to have the greatest impact on racial and ethnic minorities, no matter where they are in the world. This is what makes the empirical questions about the environment a normative question about justice.

Game theory is a branch of economics that uses powerful mathematical models to predict what agents ought to do when interacting with other agents strategically. Bounded rationality is a sub-field of game theory that sets out to explain why, in some interesting cases, people don't act according their utility maximizing strategies, as described by game theory. Interactive Epistemology is formal tool used by Game Theorists and computer scientists to model interactive cases of knowledge. This interesting and useful tool has been previously ignored by philosophers. I'd like to introduce philosophers to interactive epistemology. After doing so, I'll go on to describe the way I've used this powerful formal tool in my own research, by giving some arguments about Bounded Epistemology, which is an analogue of Bounded Rationality, and, if I'm right, is explainable according to many, but not all, of the same models. Doing so, however, requires first setting out and explaining many of these concepts more fully.

Structural biology has experienced several transformative technological advances in recent years. These include: development of extremely bright X-ray sources and the use of electrons to extend protein crystallography to ever decreasing crystal sizes; and an increase in the resolution attainable by cryo-electron microscopy. Here we discuss the use of these techniques in general terms and highlight their application for biological filament systems, an area that is severely underrepresented in atomic resolution structures. We assemble a model of a capped tropomyosin-actin minifilament to demonstrate the utility of combining structures determined by different techniques. Finally, we survey the methods that attempt to transform high resolution structural biology into more physiological environments, such as the cell. Together these techniques promise a compelling decade for structural biology and, more importantly, they will provide exciting discoveries in understanding the designs and purposes of biological machines. Structural biology is undergoing technological advancements that now reveal the structures of previously inaccessible biological machines. Microfocus synchrotron beamlines, X-ray free electron lasers, and MicroED cope with vanishingly small crystals, while cryo-electron microscopy targets single molecules at near atomic resolution. These advances promise an exciting decade for structural biology.

Abstract: In Chapter 4 of his "Self-Deception Unmasked" (SDU), Al Mele considers several (attempted) empirical demonstrations of self-deception. These empirical demonstrations work under the conception of what Mele refers to as the 'dual-belief requirement', in which an agent simultaneously holds a belief p and a belief ~p. Toward the end of this chapter, Mele considers the argument of one biologist and anthropologist, Robert Trivers, who describes what he takes to be an evolutionary explanation for coming to form false beliefs. Mele argues briefly that Trivers's account is no more explanatory than a similar one that does not include the dual-belief requirement. I present a case describing Trivers' analysis, show how Mele might reply to it. After briefly explaining Mele's sufficient conditions for entering self-deception from Chapter 3 of SDU, I'll consider what it means to hold the dual-belief. I'll then consider what I take to be a class of cases of self-deception which rely on genetic determinism, which I take to satisfy the dual-belief condition.

In his celebrated work, A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls argues that, from behind the veil of ignorance, parties in the original position will employ the maximin decision rule to reason to his two principles of justice. In this journal, Olatunji Oyeshile offers a brief and concise outline of some of the historical criticisms of that argument. Oyeshile offers two important criticisms of Rawls' argument. Both, however, are somewhat misplaced, as I shall show. First, he claims that decision theory offers parties in the original position other decision procedures. In fact, none of the alternatives are suitable, given the situation. And second, parties in the original position would first guarantee some minimum of libertarian goods, and then seek additional profits. This objection demonstrates a misunderstanding of the place of the maximin decision rule, as I shall show. I believe that both criticisms stem from a close and careful reading of Buchanan's essay on Rawls. Unfortunately, Buchanan himself seemed to have misunderstood Rawls' original arguments. I rely on problems in Buchanan's original work to defend Rawls' theory against Oyeshile's criticisms.

A common question asked among egalitarians involves the extent to which responsibility should play a deciding factor in assessing the acceptability of inequalities. So-called luck egalitarians agree that instances of genuine choice are decisive in attributing responsibility for disadvantage, and in justifying unequal distributions of social goods. In this exciting new contribution to this literature, the author explores the correct place to locate the cut between choice and chance. In doing so, he lays out a novel approach for identifying inequalities for which it is fair to hold one responsible, and those for which it is not. The argument--which builds on a thread of intellectual history that runs through Marx and Mill into more contemporary thinkers like Cohen and Rawls--provides a compelling case for rejecting a highly influential theory of strong property rights that has been inherited from Locke, and which we find in contemporary defenses of strong entitlements such as Robert Nozick's. The result is an egalitarian position which treats responsibility seriously, while maintaining our liberal commitments to impartiality and non-arbitrariness in the distribution of rights and responsibilities in contemporary society.

The thesis of this paper is that causation, when described and treated as a metaphor, increases in explanatory power, while diminishing the problems associated with standard analysis of it. I first present a description of the uses of metaphor in scientific and literary language. This is drawn primarily from Max Black's interaction view of metaphor, as well as the view forwarded by Donald Davidson in his What Metaphors Mean. I then outline some of the standard analyses in the field of causation, followed by some of the standard replies to those analyses. Finally, I show how describing causation in terms of a metaphor will bypass many of these objections, while maintaining or increasing its explanatory power.