There are still three more days to register for what will undoubtably be a fantastic workshop at the University of Cambridge organised by Marta Halina and Mariel Goddu www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/49983/
Cognition without brains? Learning and memory in microorganisms: Trends in Microbiology www.cell.com/trends/micro...
If you or your undergrad students are interested in philosophy of mind, this excellent MSc program at U Edinburgh is open for applications until April 30. An exceptional opportunity to study with the best in the field. Please share widely! #philsci #philsky #philai study.ed.ac.uk/programmes/p...
Looking forward to taking part in the Embodied and Comparative Psychology conference at the Universidad de Murcia next month! embodiedcomparativepsychology.square.site
Applications are now open for the 2026 International Graduate Summer School: The Agents of Evolution, to be held at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, from August 17–22, 2026 (check-in on August 15–16)!
sapolsn.com/event/2026-s...
Article header from the European Journal for Philosophy of Science (2026), labeled “Paper in Philosophy of Science in Practice.” The title, “Pursuitworthiness of breakthrough experiments: transforming emerging intuitions into established norms,” appears in bold above the author Szymon Miłkoś (with ORCID icon).
Unconventional experiments that later redefine what counts as 'pursuitworthy' are excluded by strict standards. Szymon Miłkoś suggests that we need “transformative” standards: judge risky research by how well it turns intuitions into shareable norms 📄👇 link.springer.com/article/10.1... #HPS #philsci
Will read - article from Guido I. Prieto and Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
New from the BJPS Review of Books
The Organism
– Jan Baedke
Reviewed by Matthew Sims
www.thebsps.org/reviewofbook...
#philsci #hpbio #philsky
Thanks @philosobio.bsky.social for this careful read and review! Food for thought!
A species of Japanese cockroach that lives in forests (good), typically consumes wood (okay) and ...appears to engage in pair bonding after eating one another's wings and mating (jaw-dropping). Reminder: this is an invertebrate.
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
That would be grand, David. Otherwise, if you're ever in Cambridge or Edinburgh, please do reach out.
the issue of proper controls or the interpretation thereof is just the bitter icing on top.
It is to say that AL might look slightly different in various microorganisms given their ecologies, physiological make up, selection pressures at their scale. The tendency to use insufficient controls in this domain is often (not always) suggestive of a hard-nosed a priori stance on the topic ....
We don't reject cetaceans and/or avians communication systems as language because - at least to our knowledge – they fail to be propositional. We categorise cetaceans language and avian language at a finer taxonomic grain. This is not to say ruling out non-AL is not necessary - it is!
Sometimes more fine-grained categories are more helpful than forcing capacities that have evolved most likely independently and to deal with different forms of environmental complexity into one overarching category - particularly when that category has been established for more complex organisms.
Maybe some AL controls are just not suited for or difficult to do when testing microorganisms. If one has successfully controlled for pseudo-conditioning, sensitisation, habituation, mere co-occurrence but can't control for the remainder in amoebae, then why not call this amoebae AL?
I appreciate the scrutiny, if that scrutiny is properly distributed across all of the taxa being tested for AL and not just focused on non-neuonral organisms. There is another approach perhaps, that I'm beginning to think might have some credence.
The move boils down to ... well, sure you controlled for X but there is still a chance that the behaviour was still caused by X. Or, you controlled for 5 of Rescorla's 6 controls and so all you've shown is something that is associative-learning like.
The use of Rescorla's AL controls to rule out non-associative learning is necessary imo. But even when using the proper controls, there seems to be an additional sceptical move when it comes to non-neural AL.
Deflating such research on grounds of insufficient controls is a tradition. The targets of this range from Jennings (1906) studies on Stentor; Gelber's (1952) paramecia conditioning studies; and more recently to De le Fuente lab's 2021 amoebae conditioning studies doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.707086.
Thanks David. It really depends what metrics one uses for how complex their other processes are to make a comparison of that nature imo. We cannot infer from habitation learning to AL though since most living systems habituate. That said, I am really not surprised that S. coeruleus can do this.
Pre-peer reviewed study by Sam Gershman's lab (Harvard) suggesting associative learning in the protozoan S. coeruleus. Let the debates regarding whether the necessary controls to establish "true" AL were used begin. This is top notch experimental design. Good on them!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
This looks great!
We found this wonderful patch of SlimeMould, Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa I think, in the Ebbor Gorge, Somerset this time last week. #SlimeMouldSunday @nationaltrust.org.uk
In this @frontiersin.bsky.social in #Ecology & #Evolution review we compile 280 studies showing empirical evidence of natural selection occuring at the levels:
- Genetic elements
- Nuclei
- Cells
- Clones
- Individuals
- Groups (demes, colonies, agreggates)
- Communities
doi.org/10.3389/fevo...
Workshop on genetics, eugenics and scientific racism next week! #Philsci #Philosophy #Ethics #HPS #Sociology #AcademicSky
We will be conducting hybrid sessions, you can find the zoom link at www.imseam.uni-heidelberg.de/en/heinzelma...
