CEFISES Seminar: Francesca Bellazzi, “Exploring New Forms of Reductionism in Biochemistry”
Channel: CEFISES at UCLouvain
Date: 2024-01-17

NOTE: There is some audio trouble in the first few minutes of this video. It is corrected after around seven minutes. Our apologies for the technical glitch!

Series: Chemistry

Speaker: Francesca Bellazzi (University of Birmingham)

Talk: “Exploring New Forms of Reductionism in Biochemistry”

Abstract

In this talk, I will explore whether reductionism is possible in biochemistry and molecular biology by considering functional reductionism. Specifically, I will argue that biochemical compounds as vitamins can be reduced to chemical bases when these perform the appropriate behaviour. This account thus develops functional reduction in a new way, employing cases drawn from cutting-edge scientific practice. This is important since it provides a reductionist account in the life sciences that can solve traditional issues faced by reductionism in this context such as multiple realisability, as it provides a more flexible and local approach to reduction, which is also compatible with emergence and with accounts of mechanisms. Relatedly, functional reduction allows for a reductionist picture that is non-eliminativist at the ontological level and clarifies the puzzling status of biochemical entities and genes.

The structure of the talk will be the following. I will first present why reductionism is often considered unfeasible in the life sciences and what functional reductionism is. Then, I will apply functional reductionism to biochemical functions by showing that they can be accounted for by a two-tier reductionist strategy. I will conclude by exploring the consequences of this account for emergence and possible objections.