Marie-Christine Maurel - Böcker

Biodiversity and Evolution includes chapters devoted to the evolution and biodiversity of organisms at the molecular level, based on the study of natural collections from the Museum of Natural History. The book starts with an epistemological and historical introduction and ends with a critical overview of the Anthropocene epoch.

Explores the study of natural collections of the Museum of Natural History Examines evolution and biodiversity at the molecular level Features an introduction focusing on epistemology and history Provides a critical overview

Developed from presentations given at the Cerisy SVSI (Sciences de la vie, sciences de l’information) conference held in 2016, this book presents a broad overview of thought and research at the intersection of life sciences and information sciences.The contributors to this edited volume explore life and information on an equal footing, with each considered as crucial to the other. In the first part of the book, the relation of life and information in the functioning of genes, at both the phylogenetic and ontogenetic levels, is articulated and the common understanding of DNA as code is problematized from a range of perspectives. The second part of the book homes in on the algorithmic nature of information, questioning the fit between life and automaton and the accompanying division between individualization and invariance.Consisting of both philosophical speculation and ethological research, the explorations in this book are a timely intervention into prevailing understandings of the relation between information and life.

This book's aim is to obtain and organize knowledge about the diversity of living things. Their epistomological and methodological fundamentals are explained in the framework of the biology of evolution. The methods of construction and use of phylogenetic trees are presented as well as the classification and description of taxa with the nomenclature rules.

Chance, Calculation and Life brings together 16 original papers from the colloquium of the same name, organized by the International Cultural Center of Cerisy in 2019. From mathematics to the humanities and biology, there are many concepts and questions related to chance. What are the different types of chance? Does chance correspond to a lack of knowledge about the causes of events, or is there a truly intrinsic and irreducible chance? Does chance preside over our decisions? Does it govern evolution? Is it at the origin of life? What part do chance and necessity play in biology? This book answers these fundamental questions by bringing together the clear and richly documented contributions of mathematicians, physicists, biologists and philosophers who make this book an incomparable tool for work and reflection.

Art and science are not separate universes. This book explores this claim by showing how mathematics, geometry and numerical approaches contribute to the construction of works of art. This applies not only to modern visual artists but also to important artists of the past. To illustrate this, this book studies Leonardo da Vinci, who was both an engineer and a painter, and whose paintings can be perfectly modeled using simple geometric curves. The world gains intelligibility through elegant mathematical frameworks – from the projective spaces of painting to the most complex phase spaces of theoretical physics.  A living example of this interdisciplinarity would be the sculptures of Jean Letourneur, a specialist in both chaos sciences and carving, as evidenced in his stonework. This book also exemplifies the geometry and life of forms through contemporary works of art – including fractal art – which have never before been represented in this type of work.

One of the essential characteristics of living beings is the explosion of variety in their forms that is intrinsically linked to the diversity of the environments they have adapted to. This book, the result of collaboration between international specialists, analyzes the multiplicity of these morphologies. It explores the origin of forms, their role in defining living things, and the relationship between form and function. It exposes the role of genes and epigenetics and examines the forms of bacteria, protists and plants. The Explosion of Life Forms also studies the memory of animals and their sensory processes, the forms of robots (built in the image of living things), and medical technologies aimed at restoring damaged living forms. Finally, this work questions a common principle of construction in the diversity of forms, as well as the idea of an abandonment of the form, a possible hidden defect of some modern philosophies.