The biology of ethics or the ethics of biology? The biologist's quest for meaning

The biologist's involvement in value issues concerning the methodology of biological sciences, in establishing the biological basis of ethics and in creating a value system based on biological knowledge is examined. It is proposed that the roots of this involvement are in the conflict of the knowledge-ethic with the established system of values and in the need for metaphysical explanation.This essay is dedicated to the memory of I. Michael Lerner, formerly Professor of Genetics University of California, Berkeley.     

The impact of molecular biology on neuroscience

How our brains work is one of the major unsolved problems of biology. This paper describes some of the techniques of molecular biology that are already being used to study the brains of animals. Mainly as a result of the human genome project many new techniques will soon become available which could decisively influence the progress of neuroscience. I suggest that neuroscientists should tell molecular biologists what their difficulties are, in the hope that this will stimulate the production of useful new biological tools.     

The biology of impact craters--a review

Impact craters contain ecosystems that are often very different from the ecosystems that surround them. On Earth over 150 impact craters have been identified in a wide diversity of biomes. All natural events that can cause localized disruption of ecosystems have quite distinct patterns of rccovery. Impact events are unique in that they are the only extraterrestrial mechanism capable of disrupting an ecosystem locally in space and time. Thus, elucidating the chronological sequence of change at the sites of impacts is of ecological interest. In this synthetic review we use the existing literature, coupled with our own observations at the Haughton impact structure, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada to consider the patterns of biological recovery at the site of impact craters and the ecological characteristics of impact craters. Three phases of recovery are suggested. The Phase of Thermal Biology, a phase associated with the localized, ephemeral thermal anomaly generated by an impact event. The Phase of Impact Succession and Climax, a phase marked by multiple primary and secondary succession events both in the aquatic realm (impact crater-lakes) and terrestrial realm (colonization of paleolacustrine deposits and impact-generated substrata) that are followed by periods of climax ecology. In the case of large-scale impact events (> 10(4) Mt), this latter phase may also be influenced by successional changes in the global environment. Finally, during the Phase of Ecological Assimilation, the disappearance of the surface geological expression of an impact structure results in a concomitant loss of ecological distinctiveness. In extreme cases, the impact structure is buried. Impact succession displays similarities and differences to succession following other agents of ecological disturbance, particularly volcanism.     

The role of ethics in experimental marine biology and ecology

Although most countries have ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects and other sentient animals, the ethical issues associated with field research have received little attention. Most experimental marine biologists and ecologists operate without ethical guidelines or scrutiny, despite intermittent community concern about their activities. We offer suggestions on how marine biologists and ecologists can protect the future of research involving the field collection and experimental manipulation of organisms by developing mechanisms to address community concerns that such research is ethically responsible. We urge experimental marine biologists and ecologists to take pre-emptive initiatives by encouraging: (1) institutional animal ethics committees to broaden their terms of reference to include environmental ethics; (2) scientific societies to develop codes of ethics to guide the environmental research conducted by their members; (3) editorial boards of journals to require the research they publish to conform to an appropriate code of ethics, and (4) management agencies that issue permits for field research to establish an ethics committee to advise them on the ethical issues raised by specific research proposals. We conclude that the resultant administrative burden on scientists would be low but that the penalties of operating without such protection can be high.     

The new biology of ageing

Human life expectancy in developed countries has increased steadily for over 150 years, through improvements in public health and lifestyle. More people are hence living long enough to suffer age-related loss of function and disease, and there is a need to improve the health of older people. Ageing is a complex process of damage accumulation, and has been viewed as experimentally and medically intractable. This view has been reinforced by the realization that ageing is a disadvantageous trait that evolves as a side effect of mutation accumulation or a benefit to the young, because of the decline in the force of natural selection at later ages. However, important recent discoveries are that mutations in single genes can extend lifespan of laboratory model organisms and that the mechanisms involved are conserved across large evolutionary distances, including to mammals. These mutations keep the animals functional and pathology-free to later ages, and they can protect against specific ageing-related diseases, including neurodegenerative disease and cancer. Preliminary indications suggest that these new findings from the laboratory may well also apply to humans. Translating these discoveries into medical treatments poses new challenges, including changing clinical thinking towards broad-spectrum, preventative medicine and finding novel routes to drug development.     

Can biology make ethics objective?

A familiar position regarding the evolution of ethics is that biology can explain the origin of morals but that in doing so it removes the possibility of their having objective justification. This position is set fourth in detail in the writings of Michael Ruse (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990a, 1990b) but it is also taken by many others, notably, Jeffrie Murphy (1982), Andrew Oldenquist (1990), and Allan Gibbard (1990), I argue the contrary view that biology provides a justification of the existence of morals which is objective in the sense of being independent of people's moral views and their particular desires and preferences. Ironically, my argument builds on the very premises which are supposed to undermine the objectivity of morals. But my argument stops short of claiming that biology can give us a basis for justifying some particular system of morals. Drawing on an analogy with social contract theory, I offer a general reason why this more ambitious project cannot be expected to succeed if the argument is pursued along the same lines. Finally, I give reasons why the possibility of objective justification for a particular morality cannot be ruled out in general on evolutionary grounds.     

Feto-maternal biology and ethics of human society

The growing interest in human reproduction and the identity of the embryo have prompted us to bring some considerations to the attention of scientists. In particular, we focus on the interactive relationship between the embryo and the mother starting from the earliest stages of development. Principles governing the acceptance and growth of the embryo in the uterus may represent a model for mutual tolerance and peaceful co-existence in human society.     

Does evolutionary biology contribute to ethics?

Human propensities that are the products of Darwinian evolution may combine to generate a form of social behavior that is not itself a direct result of such pressure. This possibility may provide a satisfying explanation for the origin of socially transmitted rules such as the incest taboo. Similarly, the regulatory processes of development that generated adaptations to the environment in the circumstances in which they evolved can produce surprising and sometimes maladaptive consequences for the individual in modern conditions. These combinatorial aspects of social and developmental dynamics leave a subtle but not wholly uninteresting role for evolutionary biology in explaining the origins of human morality.     

Re-thinking organisms: The impact of databases on model organism biology

Community databases have become crucial to the collection, ordering and retrieval of data gathered on model organisms, as well as to the ways in which these data are interpreted and used across a range of research contexts. This paper analyses the impact of community databases on research practices in model organism biology by focusing on the history and current use of four community databases: FlyBase, Mouse Genome Informatics, WormBase and The Arabidopsis Information Resource. We discuss the standards used by the curators of these databases for what counts as reliable evidence, acceptable terminology, appropriate experimental set-ups and adequate materials (e.g., specimens). On the one hand, these choices are informed by the collaborative research ethos characterising most model organism communities. On the other hand, the deployment of these standards in databases reinforces this ethos and gives it concrete and precise instantiations by shaping the skills, practices, values and background knowledge required of the database users. We conclude that the increasing reliance on community databases as vehicles to circulate data is having a major impact on how researchers conduct and communicate their research, which affects how they understand the biology of model organisms and its relation to the biology of other species.     

The new biology: beyond the Modern Synthesis

Background  

The last third of the 20^th Century featured an accumulation of research findings that severely challenged the assumptions of the "Modern Synthesis" which provided the foundations for most biological research during that century. The foundations of that "Modernist" biology had thus largely crumbled by the start of the 21^st Century. This in turn raises the question of foundations for biology in the 21^st Century.