This course is no longer offered

22001 Reduction in Biology

Credits: 3 graduate credits in Biological Thought

Prerequisite: Admission to the graduate program in Biological Thought

This course, the second of four core courses in the program, is based on two readers edited by Prof. Simona Ginsburg and on books which change from semester to semester.

The aim of the course is to discuss the central question of the philosophy of science and its unique aspects in biology. At the outset of the course, the concept of reduction and its meaning are discussed with special reference to reduction as an explanation, reduction and science, types of reduction, reduction and reductionism, the concept of emergence. Next, the autonomy of biology is questioned, both ontologically and methodologically: Are biological phenomena reducible to physical-chemical processes? Is biology reducible to physics? Is it desirable to reduce biology to the "basic sciences"? The course then turns to special features of reduction in biology: The problem of reduction in the study of evolution; reduction and genetic determinism; reduction and the mind-body problem; reduction and the issue of teleology in the study of life.