The Return of the Organism in the Biosciences: Theoretical, Historical, and Social Dimensions

生物科学中有机体的回归：理论、历史和社会维度

• 批准号: 419855389
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jan Baedke
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Philosophie I
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Independent Junior Research Groups
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/419855389?language=en
• 关键词: Return; Organism; Biosciences; Theoretical; Historical

Individuality is a key concept in human societies. How we define individuals and their boundaries affects our social relations, what kind of rights and duties we have, as well as when we are considered healthy or sick. In all these realms, the biological side of humans’ individuality – the organism – plays a crucial role. Currently, after many decades dominated by the paradigm of the gene, the concept of organism is making a comeback in the bio- and biomedical sciences. The organism is again recognized as a causally efficacious, autonomous, and active unit that transcends the properties of genes – especially in fields like epigenetics, niche construction theory, and evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-Devo). This project investigates these recent developments from a perspective of integrated history and philosophy of science. It focuses on (i) biotheoretical and conceptual, (ii) historical, as well as (iii) social and anthropological dimensions of today’s 'return of the organism'. Especially, it aims at offering solutions for theoretical and societal challenges of organism-centered biosciences in the 21st century. This concerns the problem, (i) that while organisms are increasingly recognized as agents that actively construct their own development and their environments, large genomic datasets also reveal that they are inextricable linked with and fully embedded in their material and social environment. This ambiguous new character of the individual – to stand out and at the same time to disappear – leads to various methodological and explanatory challenges in the biosciences. This complex current situation can better be understood (ii) when compared to periods in the history of biology, especially in the early 20th century, in which the organism emerged as a central unit in biology. In order to identify the relevant conceptual debates and the solutions they offer with respect to today’s challenges, archival research is combined with methods of text mining. Finally, this project investigates (iii) how current individualistic and anti-individualistic developments in biology drive trends in personalized medicine and public health debates. This includes, first, novel responsibilities of individuals as self-determined health care agents, but also new worries about social heteronomy. Second, the ambiguous status of the organism stirs debates about suitable targets of policy interventions – individuals or collectives (e.g., social and ethnic groups) – to combat diseases such as cancer and obesity. This includes the biomedical trend to return to racial classifications for studying disease susceptibilities of environmentally embedded individuals.

个性是人类社会中的一个关键概念。我们如何定义个人和他们的边界影响着我们的社会关系，我们拥有什么样的权利和义务，以及我们何时被认为是健康的或生病的。在所有这些领域，人类个性的生物学方面--有机体--发挥着至关重要的作用。目前，在基因范式主导了几十年之后，生物体的概念在生物和生物医学科学中卷土重来。生物体再次被认为是一个因果有效的、自主的和活跃的单位，它超越了基因的属性--特别是在表观遗传学、生态位构建理论和进化发展生物学(Evo-Devo)等领域。这个项目从科学历史和科学哲学的综合角度来研究这些最新的发展。它侧重于(I)生物理论和概念，(Ii)历史，以及(Iii)当今“生物回归”的社会和人类学层面。特别是，它的目的是为21世纪以生物体为中心的生物科学的理论和社会挑战提供解决方案。这涉及到一个问题：(1)尽管生物体日益被认为是积极构建自身发展和环境的媒介，但大型基因组数据集也揭示了它们与其物质和社会环境有着千丝万缕的联系并完全嵌入其中。个体的这种模棱两可的新特征--脱颖而出，同时又消失--导致了生物科学中各种方法和解释方面的挑战。这一复杂的现状可以更好地理解(Ii)与生物史上的时期相比，特别是在20世纪初，有机体作为生物学中的一个中心单位出现。为了确定相关的概念辩论及其针对当今挑战提供的解决方案，档案研究与文本挖掘方法相结合。最后，这个项目调查(Iii)当前生物学中的个人主义和反个人主义的发展如何推动个性化医学和公共卫生辩论的趋势。这包括，首先，个人作为自我决定的医疗保健代理人的新责任，但也包括对社会他律的新担忧。其次，该组织的模糊地位引发了关于政策干预的适当目标的辩论--个人或集体(例如，社会和种族群体)--以抗击癌症和肥胖症等疾病。这包括生物医学的趋势，即回归种族分类来研究环境中嵌入的个体的疾病易感性。