The conference Understanding Life in a Changing Planet: 20+2 Years of Egenis, the Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences is to be held at the Egenis Centre, University of Exeter from 17-19 April, 2024.

This event which marks the 20th anniversary of Egenis, will also honour the achievements of Professor John Dupré, co-founder of Egenis and one of the world’s leading philosophers of biology.

Corey Bunce’s presentation (poster) is titled:

Rethinking climate change adaptation by bringing Philosophy into dialogue with Social Sciences and Biology

The co-authors of this presentation are Laura Menatti, Anna-Katharina Brenner, Joyshree Chanam, Marina Knickel and Hari Sridhar. This work is a product of the KLI interdisciplinary project which recently had a book chapter on climate adaptation policies for the European Union accepted by the SSH-CENTRE, Horizon Europe project.

In this poster, Corey presents the team's idea that while 'adaptation' is crucial in addressing climate change, there's ambiguity in its conceptual framework. They suggest that the 2023 IPCC definition, though widely accepted, lacks clarity, potentially leading to inadequate adaptation efforts. To address this, they reframe the idea of adaptation, through a systemic interdisciplinary approach and knowledge integration drawing from Biology, including Evolutionary Biology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy of Science. The result is a reconceptualization and new definition of adaptation that emphasizes the long-term, processual, and context-dependent situatedness of knowledges and practices which are continuously engaging social, ecological, and historical environments.

Ludo Schoenmakers’ presentation (poster) titled:

Evolution at the Origins of Life

In this presentation, Ludo will talk about Evolutionary Theory (ET) as applied to Origins of Life (OoL) research. The central question is ‘How, if at all, can ET be applied to the pre-biological emergence and development of life?’ Answering this question requires solving several issues surrounding (i) the extension of ET from a theoretical and philosophical perspective, (ii) the conceptualization of the transition from prebiotic chemistry to cellular life, and (iii) the current use of ET and its concepts by the OoL community. Ludo’s poster will focus on the first part of the project, which is aimed at elucidating the requirements for extending ET beyond organismal biology, primarily in terms of the role ET might play in scientific explanation and understanding.