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Maureen A. O'Malley [19]Maureen O'Malley [6]
  1.  21
    Philosophy of Microbiology.Maureen O'Malley - 2014 - Cambridge University Press.
    Microbes and microbiology are seldom encountered in philosophical accounts of the life sciences. Although microbiology is a well-established science and microbes the basis of life on this planet, neither the organisms nor the science have been seen as philosophically significant. This book will change that. It fills a major gap in the philosophy of biology by examining central philosophical issues in microbiology. Topics are drawn from evolutionary microbiology, microbial ecology, and microbial classification. These discussions are aimed at philosophers and scientists (...)
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  2. Varieties of Living Things: Life at the Intersection of Lineage and Metabolism.John Dupré & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2009 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 1 (20130604).
    We address three fundamental questions: What does it mean for an entity to be living? What is the role of inter-organismic collaboration in evolution? What is a biological individual? Our central argument is that life arises when lineage-forming entities collaborate in metabolism. By conceiving of metabolism as a collaborative process performed by functional wholes, which are associations of a variety of lineage-forming entities, we avoid the standard tension between reproduction and metabolism in discussions of life – a tension particularly evident (...)
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  3. Fundamental issues in systems biology.Maureen A. O'Malley & John Dupré - 2005 - Bioessays 27 (12):1270-1276.
    In the context of scientists' reflections on genomics, we examine some fundamental issues in the emerging postgenomic discipline of systems biology. Systems biology is best understood as consisting of two streams. One, which we shall call ‘pragmatic systems biology’, emphasises large‐scale molecular interactions; the other, which we shall refer to as ‘systems‐theoretic biology’, emphasises system principles. Both are committed to mathematical modelling, and both lack a clear account of what biological systems are. We discuss the underlying issues in identifying systems (...)
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  4.  88
    Exploratory Experimentation and Scientific Practice: Metagenomics and the Proteorhodopsin Case.Maureen O'Malley - 2007 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (3):337 - 360.
    Exploratory experimentation and high-throughput molecular biology appear to have considerable affinity for each other. Included in the latter category is metagenomics, which is the DNA-based study of diverse microbial communities from a vast range of non-laboratory environments. Metagenomics has already made numerous discoveries and these have led to reinterpretations of fundamental concepts of microbial organization, evolution, and ecology. The most outstanding success story of metagenomics to date involves the discovery of a rhodopsin gene, named proteorhodopsin, in marine bacteria that were (...)
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  5.  34
    Histories of molecules: Reconciling the past.Maureen A. O'Malley - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 55 (C):69-83.
  6.  63
    Microbiota-gut-brain research: A critical analysis.Katarzyna B. Hooks, Jan Pieter Konsman & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42:1-40.
    Microbiota-gut-brain research is a fast-growing field of inquiry with important implications for how human brain function and behaviour are understood. Researchers manipulate gut microbes to reveal connections between intestinal microbiota and normal brain functions or pathological states. Many claims are made about causal relationships between gut microbiota and human behaviour. By uncovering these relationships, MGB research aims to offer new explanations of mental health and potential avenues of treatment. So far, limited evaluation has been made of MGB's methods and its (...)
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  7.  52
    Disciplinary baptisms: A comparison of the naming stories of genetics, molecular biology, genomics and systems biology.Alexander Powell, Maureen A. O'Malley, Staffan Mueller-Wille, Jane Calvert & John Dupré - 2007 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (1):5-32.
    Understanding how scientific activities use naming stories to achieve disciplinary status is important not only for insight into the past, but for evaluating current claims that new disciplines are emerging. In order to gain a historical understanding of how new disciplines develop in relation to these baptismal narratives, we compare two recently formed disciplines, systems biology and genomics, with two earlier related life sciences, genetics and molecular biology. These four disciplines span the twentieth century, a period in which the processes (...)
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  8.  65
    The Study of Socioethical Issues in Systems Biology.Maureen A. O'Malley, Jane Calvert & John Dupré - 2007 - American Journal of Bioethics 7 (4):67-78.
    Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethical issues by contrasting the concept of (...)
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  9.  76
    Intervention, integration and translation in obesity research: Genetic, developmental and metaorganismal approaches.Maureen O'Malley & Karola Stotz - 2011 - Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 6:2.
    Obesity is the focus of multiple lines of inquiry that have -- together and separately -- produced many deep insights into the physiology of weight gain and maintenance. We examine three such streams of research and show how they are oriented to obesity intervention through multilevel integrated approaches. The first research programme is concerned with the genetics and biochemistry of fat production, and it links metabolism, physiology, endocrinology and neurochemistry. The second account of obesity is developmental and draws together epigenetic (...)
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  10.  40
    The ecological virus.Maureen A. O'Malley - 2016 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 59:71-79.
    Ecology is usually described as the study of organisms interacting with one another and their environments. From this view of ecology, viruses – not usually considered to be organisms – would merely be part of the environment. Since the late 1980s, however, a growing stream of micrographic, experimental, molecular, and model-based (theoretical) research has been investigating how and why viruses should be understood as ecological actors of the most important sort. Viruses, especially phage, have been revealed as participants in the (...)
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  11.  56
    Microbes, mathematics, and models.Maureen A. O'Malley & Emily C. Parke - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 72:1-10.
    Microbial model systems have a long history of fruitful use in fields that include evolution and ecology. In order to develop further insight into modelling practice, we examine how the competitive exclusion and coexistence of competing species have been modelled mathematically and materially over the course of a long research history. In particular, we investigate how microbial models of these dynamics interact with mathematical or computational models of the same phenomena. Our cases illuminate the ways in which microbial systems and (...)
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  12.  78
    Evolutionary systems biology: What it is and why it matters.Orkun S. Soyer & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2013 - Bioessays 35 (8):696-705.
    Evolutionary systems biology (ESB) is a rapidly growing integrative approach that has the core aim of generating mechanistic and evolutionary understanding of genotype‐phenotype relationships at multiple levels. ESB's more specific objectives include extending knowledge gained from model organisms to non‐model organisms, predicting the effects of mutations, and defining the core network structures and dynamics that have evolved to cause particular intracellular and intercellular responses. By combining mathematical, molecular, and cellular approaches to evolution, ESB adds new insights and methods to the (...)
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  13.  12
    The concept of balance in microbiome research.Maureen A. O'Malley - forthcoming - Bioessays:2400050.
    Microbiome research is changing how ecosystems, including animal bodies, are understood. In the case of humans, microbiome knowledge is transforming medical approaches and applications. However, the field is still young, and many conceptual and explanatory issues need resolving. These include how microbiome causality is understood, and how to conceptualize the role microbiomes have in the health status of their hosts and other ecosystems. A key concept that crops up in the medical microbiome literature is “balance.” A balanced microbiome is thought (...)
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  14.  6
    Conceptual Parallels: Microbiome Research and Ancient Medicine.Laura Sumrall & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2024 - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 67 (3):406-423.
    The concepts currently operating in much medical microbiome research bear a curious resemblance to an ancient tradition of Western medicine. This tradition, humoral medicine, is concerned with the four humors: yellow and black bile, phlegm, blood. Both humoral medicine and medical microbiome research use notions of imbalance and balance for broad explanations of disease and health. Both traditions also hold that the composition of humors or microbiomes determines bodily as well as mental states. Causality in each system is often conceived (...)
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  15.  37
    Response to Open Peer Commentaries on "The Study of Socioethical Issues in Systems Biology".Maureen O'Malley, Jane Calvert & John Dupré - 2007 - American Journal of Bioethics 7 (4):7-9.
    Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethical issues by contrasting the concept of (...)
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  16.  37
    (1 other version)Systems Biology and Mechanistic Explanation.Ingo Brigandt, Sara Green & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2017 - In Stuart Glennan & Phyllis McKay Illari (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy. Routledge.
    We address the question of whether and to what extent explanatory and modelling strategies in systems biology are mechanistic. After showing how dynamic mathematical models are actually required for mechanistic explanations of complex systems, we caution readers against expecting all systems biology to be about mechanistic explanations. Instead, the aim may be to generate topological explanations that are not standardly mechanistic, or to arrive at design principles that explain system organization and behaviour in general, but not specific mechanisms. These abstraction (...)
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  17.  29
    Causal clarity and deeper dimensions in microbiota-gut-brain research.Katarzyna B. Hooks, Jan Pieter Konsman & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2019 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 42.
    Our analysis of microbiota-gut-brain research took MGB to task for some of its methods, concepts, and interpretations. Commentators then raised numerous issues about the neuroscientific and microbiome aspects of MGB and how it can be understood as a field. We respond by addressing the dimensionality and causal focus of MGB.
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  18.  41
    Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life.Maureen O'Malley - 2006 - Acta Biotheoretica 54 (2):151-156.
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  19. Part IV. Is evolution fundamental when it comes to defining biological ontology?: Is evolution fundamental when it comes to biological ontology?Maureen A. O'Malley - 2017 - In Shamik Dasgupta, Brad Weslake & Ravit Dotan (eds.), Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.
     
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  20.  17
    Small Things, Big Consequences: Microbiological Perspectives on Biology.Michael J. Duncan, Pierrick Bourrat, Jennifer Deberardinis & Maureen A. O'Malley - 2013 - In Kostas Kampourakis (ed.), The Philosophy of Biology: a Companion for Educators. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 1--373.
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  21.  25
    The scientific importance of asking questions at meetings: Why virtual debate is not enough.Maureen A. O'Malley & Sabina Leonelli - 2011 - Bioessays 33 (1):35-37.
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  22.  17
    Announcement by the Owner and the Publisher of Biological Theory.Mark L. Siegal, Orkun S. Soyer & Maureen O'Malley - 2015 - Biological Theory 10 (1):5-5.
  23.  45
    Review of Philosophy of Biology (Garvey, 2007). [REVIEW]Maureen A. O'Malley & Daniel J. Nicholson - 2008 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (10).