Is There a Best Way to Do It in Biology?

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LZ Granderson: What is the right way to think about the different levels of description that we have to capture a biological reality? And can they co exist, or is there a best one that we should focus in on? LZ: I thi a very much. Come on te view these tays that there isn't one best way to do it in biology. But i don't owis meaning f necessary to spend all our time trying to dofind that.

One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain apparently “purposeful” or “designed” aspects of biology in a purely mechanistic theory of unguided evolution. Features are good if they help organisms survive. But should we put organisms at the center of our attention, or the genetic information that governs those features? Arvid Ågren helps us understand the attraction of the “selfish gene” view of evolution, as well as its shortcomings. This biological excursion has deep connections to philosophical issues of levels and emergence.

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Arvid Ågren received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. Previously he worked at Cornell and Harvard. His recent book is The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution.

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