Keynote: Pierre-Henri Gouyon - Information and... - ISMB/ECCB Stockholm 2009

intro by Gene Myers: 2 PhDs, 1 Master in Philosophy (after the PhDs) - Michael Kuhn

Dr. Gouyon, PhD in Genetics and Evolution and master in Phylosophy - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Biodiversity is at the same time a treasure and a danger - Allyson Lister

biology is a young science, even compared to physics - Michael Kuhn

What is biodiversity? Long standing question in biology - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

1605: leaves fall from a tree and become fish / birds - Michael Kuhn

Many good scientists have had problems with society, but it is not sufficient to have problems with society to be a good scientist. :) - Allyson Lister

not much progress in bio during 17th century - Michael Kuhn

Linnaeus changes everything! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Michael Kuhn

Biodiversity from Linnaeus' POV: "eternal law of reproduction and nultiplication within the limits of their proper types". - Allyson Lister

biodiversity, variability between species. Individual variations are unimportant - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Cuvier: species go extinct - Michael Kuhn

Lamarck: didn't like Cuvier, proposed idea of transformation, but decided that no species goes extinct - Michael Kuhn

Then came Darwin, and natural selection, mid 19th century - Allyson Lister

revolution: seeing Nature as set of individuals, not as set of species - Michael Kuhn

Nature is individuals, not species: big conceptual revolution - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Birth of biology in 1859 - Oliver Hofmann

Origin of Species: The *only* figure in the book is of the first phylogenetic tree. - Allyson Lister

Darwin: no clear demarcation between species, sub-species - Oliver Hofmann

Continuation of variation - Oliver Hofmann

biodiversity is not count of species - Michael Kuhn

need integrated concept of biodiversity - Michael Kuhn

Diversity within species studied by geneticists (heredity) - Oliver Hofmann

heredity is amnesic, no inheritance of acquired characters - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Weissman: you don't pass on your own characteristics to your progeny, just the hereditary info you already received - Michael Kuhn

genetics; born in 1906 - Michael Kuhn

With genetics, could start to look at species from a systematic, genetic point of view. - Allyson Lister

target of selection: genetic information, not individuals - Michael Kuhn

but look at the species as only one of the components of biodiversity, other equally important are individuals and genes - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

individuals are contingent artifacts invented by genes to be reproduced - Michael Kuhn

Notion of selfish genes - Oliver Hofmann

Next came the concept that individuals are contingent artefacts invented by genes to be reproduced. - Allyson Lister

Information will either grow or disappear according to the efficiency of the avatar it produced. - Allyson Lister

Biologists historically have had problems dealing with thinking about material things as information. DNA -> RNA is *not* equivalent to C + O2 -> CO2. The information appears in RNA without any transfer of material - Allyson Lister

Biologists not trained in thinking about information (or no distinction between matter, information). Genetics about the fluxes of information, physiology about matter and energy - Oliver Hofmann

we do know what matter is, but have no idea about what information is - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Can information act on matter? - Allyson Lister

humans are systems transforming encoded information into action - Michael Kuhn

Encoded info can act on matter if there is a system to transform it. - Allyson Lister

in nature: DNA == encoded information - Michael Kuhn

Analog to the molecular machinery acting on the DNA encoded information transforming it into action and matter - Oliver Hofmann

(Fantastic - this thread is turning into a lovely story of the keynote!) - Allyson Lister

biology is an empirical science. couldn't have predicted that there are horses/zebra hybrids - Michael Kuhn

Biology an active science, theory in construction - Oliver Hofmann

Nature is neither moral or immoral: it is non-moral. - Allyson Lister

founders of genetics also founded eugenics, e.g. Galton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Michael Kuhn

Karl Pearson: "the right to live does not connote the right of each man to reproduce his kind" - Michael Kuhn

Pearson (student of Galton): right to live does not grant the right to reproduce - Oliver Hofmann

eugenics movement stopped after Nuremberg trials - Michael Kuhn

in todays society gene are right wing, environment is left - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

genes are right-wing, experiment is left-wing (interview Sarkozy / french philosopher) - Michael Kuhn

"Genes are right-wing, environment is left-wing" results in lots of chuckles from the audience - Oliver Hofmann

Quote of the conference, amirite? ;) - Johann Visagie

@Johann - definitely the quote of the keynote - do we get a final vote at the end? ;) - Allyson Lister

Proportion / contribution of genes and environment difficult to determine -- which part of the observed variation is due to the variation in genes vs variation in environment? We are just partitioning a given sample. - Oliver Hofmann

results are contingent on the data, change in the data e.g., environment change results/inferences. Must be make clear to the public. - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

Blog post: http://themindwobbles.wordpress.com/2009... - Allyson Lister

Conclusion: We need to build a concept of information, we need to be able to measure it - Michael Kuhn

information remains a fuzzy concept in biology. Effort by computer scientist and biologist must be put into clearing this up - Diego M. Riaño-Pachón

great first question -- nuremberg was the transition between near-unanimous support among scientists for eugenics to opposition. What was it that changed? (not sure I understand the answer, which focused on analogy to current GMO debate) - Andrew Su

Personal view: Not sure that the definition and conceptualisation of information, per se, need to be greatly extended beyond that provided by Shannon and his intellectual progeny. This may simply be another case where expertise accumulated in other fields has yet to be applied fully to Biology. Open to being corrected on this… - Johann Visagie

Open Question: Would it be possible that eugenetics is a manner by which people in favor of eugenetics express their instincts of survival? - Remi Gagne