History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences最新文献

Social construction of algorithmic success: between good science and political feasibility in marine conservation planning. 算法成功的社会建构：在海洋保护规划良好的科学与政治可行性之间。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00696-0

Matt P Lukacz

{"title":"Social construction of algorithmic success: between good science and political feasibility in marine conservation planning.","authors":"Matt P Lukacz","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00696-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00696-0","url":null,"abstract":"In the decade between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, critical voices within the conservation biology community argued that site selection for protected areas was most often done in a way that was unscientific. Conservation practitioners, many of whom became acutely aware of the constraints of the policy world through direct participation, believed that they needed to think pragmatically about establishing a scientific basis for the design of protected areas. Some of the conservation practitioners came to see rationalistic tools such as optimization algorithms embedded within decision-support systems as means of reconciling social, economic, and environmental interests. This paper recapitulates the history of the first significant policy initiative that purported to use algorithmic decision support software, MARXAN, by interweaving environmental history, history of computing, and history of science. Specifically, it is a historical reconstruction of the use of MARXAN in its first large-scale conservation policy project: a rezoning of Australia's Great Barrier Reef that took place between 1998 and 2004. This paper asks: how exactly was MARXAN used in the conservation policy planning initiative? And, what role did MARXAN play in narratives about the success of the policy initiative? I argue that in Australian case, it was the commitment to political value of democratic deliberation and not the allure of algorithmic objectivity that stood behind what was by many considered an agenda-setting marine conservation policy. These findings add support to the growing consensus in critical algorithmic studies against algorithmic determinism by situating the agency of the users of MARXAN within a larger context of a \"drama\" as reported (Hilgartner in Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2000) of science advice.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 4","pages":"48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Brackish knowledge: exploring the material, epistemic, and institutional entanglements of numerical modelling of the Dutch coast. 半咸知识：探索荷兰海岸数值模拟的材料、认知和制度纠缠。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00695-1

Jacqueline Ashkin, Sarah de Rijcke

{"title":"Brackish knowledge: exploring the material, epistemic, and institutional entanglements of numerical modelling of the Dutch coast.","authors":"Jacqueline Ashkin, Sarah de Rijcke","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00695-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00695-1","url":null,"abstract":"Estuaries, the dynamic transitional zones where rivers converge with oceans, represent complex ecosystems characterized by the mixing of fresh and saltwater, resulting in what is known as brackish water. These coastal interfaces, along with tidal flats and other littoral features, embody a unique duality, existing as neither fully terrestrial nor entirely marine environments. This ambiguous nature poses significant challenges for scientific inquiry when coastal regions become the focus of study. Inspired by Stefan Helmreich's (2011) call to 'think with seawater', we propose the concept of \"brackish knowledge\" as a way to engage with knowledge practices that are entangled with both the material complexity of the environments they describe and the practical contingencies of the contemporary science system. In this paper, we follow the development and maintenance of the General Estuarine Transport Model (GETM), a hydrodynamic model designed to represent the complex tidal processes in estuaries and shallow shelf-sea areas such as those along the Dutch coast. We show how the model's developers move across and recombine properties that are often framed in opposition to one another, namely the physical and ecological, social and computational, and public and private, in order to continue making knowledge about coastal and estuarine environments. We conclude that the material, epistemic, and institutional dimensions of brackish knowledge should be considered alongside one another in the governing of scientific knowledge about environmental change, since this ultimately shapes what can be known about potential coastal futures.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 4","pages":"49"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511264/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145253977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

"Addicted" rats? Epistemic challenges in modeling addiction with laboratory animals. “上瘾”老鼠吗?用实验动物模拟成瘾的认知挑战。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00701-6

Héloïse Athéa

引用次数: 0

Environmental valuation and knowledge production in Swedish marine and water management. 瑞典海洋和水管理的环境评价和知识生产。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00698-y

Maria Paulsson, Christopher Kullenberg, Lena Eriksson

{"title":"Environmental valuation and knowledge production in Swedish marine and water management.","authors":"Maria Paulsson, Christopher Kullenberg, Lena Eriksson","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00698-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00698-y","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores how environmental valuation and knowledge production shape Swedish marine and water management through the case of the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM). Tasked with conserving, restoring, and sustainably using aquatic resources following an Ecosystem Approach (EA), SwAM navigates complex interactions between these processes and the generation of actionable knowledge. Drawing on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Environmental Ethics, the article explores how SwAM constructs, translates, and operationalizes values in its management strategy and associated action plans, with empirical focus on three cases: seals as obstacles in professional fisheries, the socio-economic value of recreational fishing and tourism, and the prospective value of aquaculture. The analysis shows that SwAM's interpretation of the EA renders ecological value inseparable from economic benefit, as ecological functions are translated into measurable, often monetary indicators in the pursuit of 'balance'. Scientific knowledge becomes a prerequisite for valuation but is shaped by a governance logic that prioritizes quantification, standardization, and economic utility. Rather than enabling a plurality of environmental values, this logic tends to privilege those that can be expressed in instrumental and monetizable terms. This raises critical questions about whether the notion of ecological balance, central to the EA, can be realized within a framework that equates environmental worth with economic outcomes. A shift toward non-anthropocentric governance would require not only rethinking valuation practices but also developing epistemologies capable of recognizing non-instrumental dimensions of nature's value.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 4","pages":"50"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511183/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145259808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Kathryn Nave, A drive to survive: the free energy principle and the meaning of life, The MIT Press, 2025. 凯瑟琳·纳夫，《生存的动力：自由能原理和生命的意义》，麻省理工学院出版社，2025年。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00689-z

Anton Robert

引用次数: 0

Common sense, scientific images, and the aesthetic mode of knowing. 常识，科学形象，以及认识的审美模式。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00697-z

Shani Inbar, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg, Anna Zeligowski

{"title":"Common sense, scientific images, and the aesthetic mode of knowing.","authors":"Shani Inbar, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg, Anna Zeligowski","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00697-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00697-z","url":null,"abstract":"In modern English, common sense refers to an intuitive capacity to grasp self-evident truths and make judgments that require no special training or expertise. Although often treated as universal and ahistorical, its standing as an epistemic authority, especially within the sciences, has been contested, revised, and reconfigured over the past two centuries. Yet scientists' assumptions about the reliability of common sense typically remain implicit, embedded in a normative background that is rarely examined but quietly guides scientific thought. This paper examines how different attitudes toward common sense are reflected in the aesthetic choices and visual references scientists use. Through three case studies-Ernst Haeckel, Conrad Waddington, and Ginsburg & Jablonka-we demonstrate how their respective views, firmly rooted in their historical context, are made accessible through their aesthetic choices. Examining these choices reveals that scientific images, particularly those with artistic qualities, do more than depict scientific knowledge; they reflect underlying normative commitments, shaping what is seen as intelligible and scientifically meaningful. They are sites where scientific sensibilities and epistemic commitments become visible and available for critique. Drawing on Kant's notion of sensus communis, we suggest that aesthetic judgments, particularly of scientific representations, provide a reflective standpoint from which such implicit commitments can be evaluated.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 4","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511128/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145253946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Apgar score and race: why healthy babies are supposed to be "pink". 阿普加分数和种族：为什么健康的婴儿应该是“粉红色的”。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-10-09 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00693-3

Rebecca L Jackson

{"title":"The Apgar score and race: why healthy babies are supposed to be \"pink\".","authors":"Rebecca L Jackson","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00693-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00693-3","url":null,"abstract":"Outlining the Apgar Score's use throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, I propose that the historical abuse of this score for newborn wellness does not only come from the obviously white-centered assessment criteria for \"color\" established in the 1950s. The more concerning aspect of the Score is its potential interpretation as measuring one unitary construct which captures both the past asphyxiated condition and future health risks of individual infants (a problem that has been noted for decades in professional guidance documents). My novel contribution is to use the history of the Apgar Score's use and misuse to demonstrate why racial inequities in medicine pose a problem for two frameworks in philosophy of measurement when applied to patient outcome measures. I ultimately argue that the case of the Apgar Score shows how both dominant frameworks in philosophy of measurement, that of coordination (within the representational theory of measurement) and that of psychometric validity, fail to help us fully comprehend the challenge of clinical measuring with indices. Both frameworks expect that, at some point, the process of coordination or validation of an instrument will end. An expanded and historically-informed framework is warranted for understanding how patient outcome measures are validated (and re-validated) over time, which can include the social and institutional forces which render an index relevant, biased, or questionable for different aims.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 4","pages":"45"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12511204/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

William Max Nelson, Enlightenment biopolitics: a history of race, eugenics, and the making of citizens, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024. 威廉·马克斯·尼尔森，《启蒙生命政治：种族、优生学和公民形成的历史》，芝加哥：芝加哥大学出版社，2024年。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-09-18 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00694-2

Brianne Wesolowski

引用次数: 0

Marine constraints as philosophical opportunities: the Krogh principle and the benefits of philosophical engagement with the sea. 海洋约束作为哲学机遇：克拉夫原则和与海洋哲学接触的好处。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-09-11 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00688-0

Elis Jones, Vincent Cuypers

引用次数: 0

Ronald Fisher and group selection. Ronald Fisher和群体选择。

IF 1 3区哲学

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Pub Date : 2025-08-27 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-025-00691-5

Robert J Asher

{"title":"Ronald Fisher and group selection.","authors":"Robert J Asher","doi":"10.1007/s40656-025-00691-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s40656-025-00691-5","url":null,"abstract":"Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) was a pioneer of evolutionary biology who founded modern statistics. He has often been associated with a gene-centric conception of natural selection, but he did not discount the importance of factors operating at other levels. In the later chapters of his 1930 book, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Fisher proposed a mechanism to explain how a human civilization of any ethnicity could rise or fall. In contemporary terms, he did this by applying a concept of group selection, also known as \"multi-level selection 1\", in which supra-individual collectives impart consistent population structure over time to reproductive entities therein. Fisher believed that socioeconomic factors, operating above the individual level, could bias reproductive patterns and thereby have a causal influence on human social complexity. \"Multi-level selection 2\" is another kind of group selection which asserts heritable features to units above the level of the individual, and Fisher regarded \"sexuality itself\" as one such example. Fisher held some inaccurate views about human diversity, but appreciating how his argument foreshadows current multi-level selection theory does not require agreement with his mistakes. The chapters concerning human civilization in The Genetical Theory were not a polemic against non-Europeans, but reflected an understanding of multi-level selection and its effects on evolution as a whole.","PeriodicalId":56308,"journal":{"name":"History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences","volume":"47 3","pages":"42"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12391204/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144980284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0