The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (BJPS) has awarded its 2023 Popper Prize to James DiFrisco (Francis Crick Institute).
The BJPS Popper Prize is awarded to the article judged to be the very best revealed in that 12 months’s quantity of the journal, as decided by the Editors-in-Chief and the BSPS Committee.
Dr. DiFrisco gained the award for his article, “Toward a Theory of Homology: Development and the De-coupling of Morphological and Molecular Evolution.”
Right here’s the paper’s summary:
Advances in developmental genetics and evo-devo within the final a number of a long time have enabled the expansion of novel developmental approaches to the traditional theme of homology. These approaches depart from the extra commonplace phylogenetic view by contending that homology between morphological characters is dependent upon developmental-genetic individuation and clarification. This text gives a scientific re-examination of the connection between developmental and phylogenetic homology in gentle of present proof from developmental and evolutionary genetics and genomics. I current a qualitative mannequin of the processes that trigger de-coupling of morphological and molecular evolution by developmental system drift (DSD), and hypothesize that DSD is a widespread and common stochastic course of that’s predictable from parameters corresponding to inhabitants measurement, pleiotropy, and regulatory redundancy. These theoretical findings assist an integrative strategy by which fashions of DSD help in figuring out when developmental-genetic explanations of homology apply and when different explanations corresponding to stabilizing choice are wanted. I argue {that a} phylogenetic monism in regards to the definition and standards of homology helps the combination of various explanations right into a idea of homology higher than pluralism does.
The prize features a £500 award.
Extra details about the prize and an inventory of its earlier winners might be discovered here.
