Department of Philosophy

 

Werkmeister Conference on Form & Function in Biology

In memory of Ernst Mayr, 1904 - 2005

(Sponsored by the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Endowment Fund)

March 17-20, 2005

Program

Thursday, March 17th

Session I:

1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Speaker: Richard Richards (University of Alabama), "Functional Analysis and Character Transformation"

Speaker: Roger Sansom (Texas A&M University), "Accounting for Natural Selection and Developmental Constraints"

Speaker: Jane Maienschein (Arizona State University), "Form and Function start with the Egg"

Speaker: Jorge Wagensberg (Museum of Natural History, Barcelona, Spain), "Rebellion of the Forms: What Perseveres when Uncertainty Functions as a Constraint"

Speaker: Matthew Day (Florida State University), "The Form of a Godly Mind: Phrenology, Evolution and Nineteenth-Century Theories of Religion"

Friday, March 18th

Session II:

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Speaker: Rudy and Elizabeth Raff (Indiana University), "Evolution in the Light of Embryos: Origins of Novel Features"

Speaker: Gunter Wagner (Yale University), "Avian Digit Homology: Experimental Results and Ontological Implications"

Speaker: Jason Robert (Arizona State University), "Form and Function in Stem Cell Biology"

Speaker: Paul Brakefield (Leiden University), "Using Selection Experiments on Bicyclus Butterflies to Explore Developmental Constraints"

Session III:

2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Speaker: Peter Wainwright (University of California - Davis), "Form-function Relationships and the Evolution of Biological Diversity "

Speaker: Joseph Travis (Florida State University), "Convergence and Idiosyncrasy in Adaptation: Looking at Form and Function Matches at Different Biological Levels"

Speaker: David Krakauer (Santa Fe Institute), "The Varieties of Form and Function"

Speaker: Manfred D. Laubichler (Arizona State University), "Goethe Vivat! The Problem of Form in Theoretical Biology"

Saturday, March 19th

Session IV:

9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Speaker: Steven Orzack (The Fresh Pond Research Institute), "Assessing Natural Selection and Phylogenetic Inertia as Explanations of Form and Function"

Speaker: Karl Niklas (Cornell University), "The Pitfalls of Deducing Function from Organic Form and Environmental Context"

Speaker: Roger Thomas (Franklin and Marshall College), "Animal Skeletons: Laws of Form and the Appearance of Design"

Session V:

1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Speaker: Ron Amundson (University of Hawaii), "Epigenetics Confounds Any Definitive Assignment of Proper Functions to Body Parts, and thereby Serves Civil Rights"

Speaker: Vassiliki B. Smocovitis (University of Florida), "No Agreement to Separate: G. Ledyard Stebbins and Developmental Genetics, 1959-1973"

Sunday, March 20th

Session VI:

9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Speaker: Frederick Davis (Florida State University), "Archie Carr and the Evolution of Cichlid Diversity: Musings on Rubrism, Buttheadedness, and Isolation"

Speaker: David Castle (Guelph University), "Form and Function in Agricultural Biotechnology"

Speaker: Zachary Ernst (Florida State University), "The Function of Intuition"