"The author tells a history of the study of cancer-causing viruses from the early twentieth century to the development of an HPV vaccine for cervical cancer in 2006. He profiles the "cancer virus hunters" who made breakthroughs in tumor virology"--.

ABSTRACT Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she shifted her focus to the three-dimensional structure of viruses, obtaining diffraction patterns of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) of unprecedented detail and clarity. During (...) the next five years, while making significant headway on the structural determination of TMV, Franklin maintained an active correspondence with both Watson and Crick, who were also studying aspects of virus structure. Developments in TMV research during the 1950s illustrate the connections in the emerging field of molecular biology between structural studies of nucleic acids and of proteins and viruses. They also reveal how the protagonists of the “race for the double helix” continued to interact personally and professionally during the years when Watson and Crick's model for the double-helical structure of DNA was debated and confirmed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she shifted her focus to the three-dimensional structure of viruses, obtaining diffraction patterns of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) of unprecedented detail and clarity. During (...) the next five years, while making significant headway on the structural determination of TMV, Franklin maintained an active correspondence with both Watson and Crick, who were also studying aspects of virus structure. Developments in TMV research during the 1950s illustrate the connections in the emerging field of molecular biology between structural studies of nucleic acids and of proteins and viruses. They also reveal how the protagonists of the “race for the double helix” continued to interact personally and professionally during the years when Watson and Crick's model for the double-helical structure of DNA was debated and confirmed. (shrink)

College of Medicine, University of South Alabama Mobile, AL 36688-0002, USA wbp501{at}jaguar1.usouthal.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract Recent work in viral genomics has shown that bacteriophages exhibit a high degree of mosaicism, which is most likely due to a long history of prolific horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Given these findings, we argue that each of the most plausible attempts to properly classify bacteriophages into distinct species fail. Mayr's biological species concept fails because there is (...) no useful viral analog to sexual reproduction. Phenetic species concepts fail because they obscure the mosaicism and the rich reticulated viral histories. Phylogenetic species concepts, even when extended to take into account reticulation, fail because there is no non-arbitrary distinction between recombination events that create a new viral species and those that do not. There is good reason to think that bacteriophages, arguably the Earth's most abundant biological agent, evolve without forming species. Introduction The Biology of Viruses 2.1 Bacteriophage life cycles 2.2 Mechanisms of HGT The Species Problem and Species Concepts 3.1 Phenetic species concepts 3.2 The biological species concept 3.3 Phylogenetic species concepts 3.4 The ecological species concept 3.5 Homeostatic property cluster species Viruses and Species Taxonomy Reticular Phylogenies Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against John Beatty’s position in his paper “The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis” by counterexample. Beatty argues that there are no distinctly biological laws because the outcomes of the evolutionary processes are contingent. I argue that the heart of the Caspar–Klug theory of virus structure—that spherical virus capsids consist of 60T subunits (where T = k 2 + hk + h 2 and h and k are integers)—is a distinctly biological law even if the existence of spherical (...) viruses is evolutionarily contingent. (shrink)

The use of Big Data—however the term is defined—involves a wide array of issues and stakeholders, thereby increasing numbers of complex decisions around issues including data acquisition, use, and sharing. Big Data is becoming a significant component of practice in an ever-increasing range of disciplines; however, since it is not a coherent “discipline” itself, specific codes of conduct for Big Data users and researchers do not exist. While many institutions have created, or will create, training opportunities to prepare people to (...) work in and around Big Data, insufficient time, space, and thought have been dedicated to training these people to engage with the ethical, legal, and social issues in this new domain. Since Big Data practitioners come from, and work in, diverse contexts, neither a relevant professional code of conduct nor specific formal ethics training are likely to be readily available. This normative paper describes an approach to conceptualizing ethical reasoning and integrating it into training for Big Data use and research. Our approach is based on a published framework that emphasizes ethical reasoning rather than topical knowledge. We describe the formation of professional community norms from two key disciplines that contribute to the emergent field of Big Data: computer science and statistics. Historical analogies from these professions suggest strategies for introducing trainees and orienting practitioners both to ethical reasoning and to a code of professional conduct itself. We include two semester course syllabi to strengthen our thesis that codes of conduct can be harnessed to support the development of ethical reasoning in, and a sense of professional identity among, Big Data practitioners. (shrink)

Recent work in viral genomics has shown that bacteriophages exhibit a high degree of mosaicism, which is most likely due to a long history of prolific horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Given these findings, we argue that each of the most plausible attempts to properly classify bacteriophages into distinct species fail. Mayr's biological species concept fails because there is no useful viral analog to sexual reproduction. Phenetic species concepts fail because they obscure the mosaicism and the rich reticulated viral histories. Phylogenetic (...) species concepts, even when extended to take into account reticulation, fail because there is no non-arbitrary distinction between recombination events that create a new viral species and those that do not. There is good reason to think that bacteriophages, arguably the Earth's most abundant biological agent, evolve without forming species.1. Introduction2. The Biology of Viruses2.1. Bacteriophage life cycles2.2. Mechanisms of HGT3. The Species Problem and Species Concepts3.1. Phenetic species concepts3.2. The biological species concept3.3. Phylogenetic species concepts3.4. The ecological species concept3.5. Homeostatic property cluster species4. Viruses and Species Taxonomy5. Reticular Phylogenies6. Conclusion. (shrink)

The recent conception of biodiversity proposed by James Maclaurin and Sterelny was developed mostly with macrobiological life in mind. They suggest that we measure biodiversity by dividing life into natural units (typically species) and quantifying the differences among units using phenetic rather than phylogenetic measures of distance. They identify problems in implementing quantitative phylogenetic notions of difference for non-prokaryotic species. I suggest that if we focus on microbiological life forms that engage in frequent, promiscuous lateral gene transfer (LGT), and their (...) associated reticulated phylogenies, we need to rethink the notion of species as the natural unit, and we discover additional problems with phylogenetic notions of distance. These problems suggest that a phenetic approach based on morphospaces has just as much appeal, if not more, for microbes as they do for multi-cellular life. Facts about LGT, however, offer no new insight into the additional challenge of reconciling units and differences into a single measure of biodiversity. (shrink)

In his Particles and Waves, Peter Achinstein gives a precise probabilistic version of theoretical coherence inspired by William Whewell's somewhat vague notion of coherence. Whewell believed that as theoretical science proceeds, it becomes more coherent and rejects false incoherent theories. Achinstein offers a challenge: try to make Whewell's idea more precise while maintaining the properties that Whewell claimed coherence to have. This chapter argues (1) that Achinstein's probabilistic rendition of coherence fails to capture Whewell's notion since the probabilistic rendition of (...) coherence is not an a priori sign of truth and (2) that Achinstein's approach is better seen as a critique of Whewell's central methodological claims than as an interpretation of Whewell's ideas. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Kenneth Schaffner''s(1998) rendition of ''''developmentalism'''' from the point of viewof bacteriophage biology. I argue that the fact that a viablephage can be produced from purified DNA and host cellularcomponents lends some support to the anti-developmentalist, ifthey first show that one can draw a principled distinctionbetween genetic and environmental effects. The existence ofhost-controlled phage host range restriction supports thedevelopmentalist''s insistence on the parity of DNA andenvironment. However, in the case of bacteriophage, thedevelopmentalist stands on less firm (...) ground than when organismswith nervous systems, such as Schaffner''s C. elegans, areconsidered. (shrink)

In a pioneering book, Philosophy of Microbiology, Maureen O’Malley argues for the philosophical importance of microbes through an examination of their impact on ecosystems, evolution, biological classification, collaborative behavior, and multicellular organisms. She identifies many understudied conceptual issues in the study of microbes. If philosophers follow her lead, the philosophy of biology will be expanded and enriched.

In this, the first book devoted to Peter Achinstein's influential work in philosophy of science, twenty distinguished philosophers, including four Lakatos award winners, address various aspects of Achinstein's influential views on the nature of scientific evidence, scientific explanation, and scientific realism. It includes short essays by Steve Gimbel and Jeff Maynes, Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Victor DiFate, Jerry Doppelt, Adam Goldstein, Philip Kitcher, Fred Kronz, Deborah Mayo, Greg Morgan, Helen Longino, John Norton, Michael Ruse, Bas van Fraassen, Stathis Psillos, Larry (...) Laudan, Richard Richards, Kent Staley, and Jim Woodward with replies to each contributor from Peter Achinstein. Readers will come away with an understanding of the current debate in multiple areas of philosophy of science and how various contemporary issues are connected. (shrink)

Should judgments of beauty play a guiding role in theoretical science even if beauty is not a sign of truth? In this paper I argue that they should in certain cases. If we analyze the rationality of theoretical pursuit using decision theory, a theory’s beauty can influence the utilities of the various options confronting the researcher. After considering the views of Pierre Duhem and Thomas Kuhn on aesthetics in science, I suggest that because we value freedom of inquiry we rightly (...) allow scientists some choice in how they value aesthetic properties of theories and thus some freedom to use beauty to guide their research program. (shrink)

In 1962, Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug published their classic theory of virus structure. They developed their theory with an explicit analogy between spherical viruses and Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. In this paper, I use the spherical virus-geodesic dome case to develop an account of analogy and deductive analogical inference based on the notion of an isomorphism. I also consider under what conditions there is a good reason to claim an experimentally untested analogy is plausible.