Linquist, Stefan - University of Guelph - Department of Integrative Biology

个人简介

I am a philosopher of biology with research interests in ecology, genomics, evolution, and psychology. Much of my work is at the interface between these disciplines. See below for brief descriptions of my current projects. Despite the diversity of these pursuits some common themes unify my work. Philosophically, I am a naturalist. I take this to mean that philosophical reasoning should be informed by the best available scientific theories and results. However, I also consider it the job of philosophy to challenge science. For example, my work on innateness in psychology, on contingency in ecology, and on function in genomics challenges the ways that some scientists employ these concepts. A second theme is to incorporate empirical results into my philosophical work. I have come to see this as a way of keeping things honest. Theoretical distinctions can be relatively easy to draw in the abstract, where there is no requirement to tie them to empirically measurable outcomes. Instead, I make an effort to demonstrate how the concepts that I analyze and develop can be operationalized and tested. For example, in our work on the ecology/evolution distinction (Linquist et al 2013) my colleagues and I show that it is possible to quantify these two factors. I also find it profitable to coauthor with scientists. Much of my recent work involves collaboration with a group of philosophically-minded biologists at the University of Guelph. This is above all a practical strategy. Instead of mastering from scratch a some body of scientific literature, it is more efficient to rely on scientific ‘informants’ as your guide. Working with a group is also more fun. PhD Philosophy, Duke University. MSc Biology, State University of New York, Binghamton. B.A. Philosophy, Simon Fraser University

研究领域

I am engaged in several different research projects at the moment. Here are some brief descriptions. For more info see my personal website or publications. Genome-level Ecology This project investigates a new way of thinking about DNA. Mobile genetic elements (transpospns) are compared to mini-organisms that jump around within a chromosomal environment. One then borrows familiar concepts and models from ecology to solve long standing puzzles in genomics. This approach raises numerous philosophcial questions about the minimal conditions for being an ecosystem and the very nature of ecological versus evolutionary modes of explanation. Are There Ecological Laws? Thinking about ecological explanation at the genomic level has led to a new perspective on the old question of whether there are laws in ecology. I offer a way of quantifying the respective infleunces of contingent versus law-like influences on ecologcial communities. Some forthcoming work identifies a range of laws at population, commmunity, and ecosystem levels. Function Concepts in Genomics On what grounds can genetic elements legitimately be identified as functional? This question has attracted considerable attention with ENCODE’s recent pronouncement that over 80% of the human genome has a "biochemical function” – a claim that purportedly overturns received ideas about the prevalence of junk DNA. Our work shows that this claim rests on an equivocation between two function concepts, and discusses how each concept should apply to various types of genetic element. Emotion, Culture, and Neuroscience One aspect of this research critically examines the claim, popularized by neurobiologist Antonio Damasio in his book Descartes’ Error, that good practical judgment is guided by emotion. This idea is interesting but extremely vague. I have developed strategies for calrifying different versions of the "somatic marker hypothesis" and identified the kinds of data required to test them. Another aspect of my emotion research attempts to move beyond the (rather stale) debate between biological and social constructionist theories. Currently, I am looking at the Culture of Honour hypothesis as a case study for emotional cultural evolution. This work involves, in part, a cross cultural analysis of data drawn from the Human Relations Area File. Complex Social Behaviour in Octopuses I have recently joined an exciting research project examining the social behaviour of the "gloomy" octopus (O. tetricus). In January, 2015, we mounted three underwater cameras around a high-activity site located in Jervis Bay, Australia. The video is still being analyzed so our results are not yet available. But some of our work is discussed here 1, 2,).

近期论文

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Linquist, S. Gregory, T.R. Elliott, T.A. Saylor, B. Kremer, S.C. Cottenie, K. (2016). Yes! There are resilient generalizations (or "laws") in ecology. Quarterly Review of Biology, 91(2): 119-131. pdf Linquist, S. (2016). Which evolutionary model best explains the culture of honour? Biology & Philosophy, 31(2): 213-235. pdf Linquist, S. (2015). Against Lawton's contingency thesis, or, whyt the reported demise of community ecology is greatly exaggerated. Philosophy of Science, 82(5): 1104--1115. pdf Linquist, S. (2015). Review of James Tabery's Beyond Versus: The Struggle to Understand the Interaction of Nature and Nurture. Journal of the History of Biology, 48: 357-360. pdf Bartol, J. & Linquist, S. (2015). How do somatic markers feature in decision making? Emotion Review, 7: 81-89. pdf Linquist, S. Cottenie, K. Elliott, T.A. Saylor, B. Kremer, S.C. and Gregory, T.R. (2015). Applying ecological models to communities of genetic elements: the case of neutral theory. Molecular Ecology, 24: 3232-3242. pdf Elliott, T.A., S. Linquist and T.R. Gregory (2014). Conceptual and empirical challenges of ascribing functions to transposable elements. The American Naturalist, 184(1): 14-24. pdf Doolittle, W. F., T. Brunet, S. Linquist, & T.R. Gregory (2014). Distinguishing between function and effect in genome biology. Genome Biology and Evolution, 6: 1234-1237. pdf Linquist, S. B. Saylor, K. Cottenie, T.A. Elliott, S.C. Kremer & T.R. Gregory (2013). Distinguishing ecological from evolutionary approaches to genetic elements. Biological Reviews, 88(3): 573-584. pdf Saylor, B. T.A. Elliott, S. Linquist. S.C. Kremer, T.R.. Gregory & K Cottenie (2013). A novel application of ecologcial analyses to transposable element distribution in the Bos taurus genome. Genome, 56: 521-533. pdf Linquist, S. & Bartol, J. (2013). Two myths about somatic markers. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 64 (3): 455-484. pdf