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Forum for Philosophy

April 8th, 2020

From the vaults: The Social Lives of Microbes

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Forum for Philosophy

April 8th, 2020

From the vaults: The Social Lives of Microbes

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Kevin Foster/ Sara Mitri/ Maureen O’Malley

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What are microbial societies? In what ways do they resemble human societies and in what ways do they differ? Can the same ideas that explain cooperation in larger animals also explain cooperation in microbes? And what can we learn from microbes about what it is to be human? In this panel discussion, philosopher Maureen O’Malley and biologists Kevin Foster and Sara Mitri discuss the social lives of microbes.

Speakers
Kevin Foster, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of Oxford
Sara Mitri, Senior Researcher in Microbiology, University of Lausanne
Maureen O’Malley, Research Professor of Philosophy, University of Bordeaux

Chair
Jonathan Birch, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method (LSE) and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow

In conjunction with the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, LSE

Recorded on 24 January 2017 at the LSE

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Forum for Philosophy

Science, politics, and culture from a philosophical point of view

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