Aug 2, 2020
Virologist Jonathan Latham
explains his view of living organisms in opposition to genetic or
biological determinism.
He shares a wide range of thoughts, including
Jonathan Latham, PhD, is the
executive director and cofounder of the Bioscience Resource
Project. He's the editor
of Independent Science News
and director of the Poison Papers project, which publishes documents on the
chemical industry. In this podcast, he begins by engaging with
ideas presented in a previous podcast when Richard spoke with famed
biologist Denis Noble. Noble said that there's no privileged level
of causation in biology and Latham continues to address this issue,
offering his own commentary over the course of the show.
He explains that he became interested in the kind of prominence
that scientists give to genes and DNA and eventually came to the
realization that there are a lot of flaws in how we think about
organisms that stem from adherence to genetics facts and
emphasizing the importance of genetics.
He asserts that the only agency
that exists in an organism is the one that derives from the
organism itself and explains what this means in more concrete
terms. He also touches on current projects such as a paper he and
Allison Wilson wrote about their theory on the origin of
SARS-CoV-2, which he believes was through a group of miners who
experienced a mysterious disease in 2012.
After explaining in more detail, he returns to the ideas of genetic
determinism and talks about a book he's authoring on the
topic.
To find out more, he suggests
getting on the mailing list of Independent Science News.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK