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The MBL-ASU History of
Biology Seminar is an intensive week with annually varying topics
designed for a group of no more than 25 advanced graduate students, postdoctoral associates,
younger scholars, and more established researchers in biology, history, philosophy and the social sciences.
"Theory in the Life Sciences"
At the dawn of the modern area of -omics based biology and a decade before completion of the human genome project, Nobel Laureate Walter Gilbert predicted: “The new paradigm, now emerging, is that all the 'genes' will be known (in the sense of being resident in databases available electronically), and that the starting point of a biological investigation will be theoretical. An individual scientist will begin with a theoretical conjecture, only then turning to experiment to follow or test that hypothesis.” (Gilbert 1991) Today, more than fifteen years after this statement, it is still largely a prediction about the future. At the start of the 21st century the discipline of biology is faced with a combined data and theory crisis; it has too much of the former and not enough of the latter, a fact that is now beginning to be widely recognized. MORE>>>
Organizers: Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University, maienschein@asu.edu, Michael Dietrich, Dartmouth College, Michael.Dietrich@Dartmouth.edu and Manfred Laubichler, Arizona State University, Manfred.Laubichler@asu.edu
Staff Contact: Felicity Snyder, Center Coordinator, fsnyder@asu.edu
The Seminar in the History of Biology is offered in collaboration
with and is funded through Arizona State University, with additional
funding from the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and
Technology. For more information about the seminar in general, past
topics, updates concerning this year's topic, and application information,
please visit the course
website.
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