Biological Possibility: Can Chance Show Us the Way?

Series: Work-in-Progress

Abstract: “The purpose of this talk is to provide an analysis of biological possibility through the notion of biological stochasticity. Dennett provided a first definition of biological possibility in 1995, which was heavily criticised for its abstract nature (Zinser 2007). The last 10 years have seen a new wave of work focusing on possibility in synthetic biology. This latter work has an emphasis on practical biology. However, they still focus exclusively on (alternative) evolution. The talk proposes a broadening of research into the study of possibility through a careful study of the literature in the field of developmental biology. Furthermore, starting from the notion of contingency in evolution and stochasticity in development, a comparison between these two disciplines is proposed in order to clarify the status of their possibility. I also show that this in-depth study of possibility can be useful in further enriching the epistemology of the notion of biological stochasticity and biological contingency.”