The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science
The Lonely Pipette is a podcast where scientists share tips to help you do better science. The episodes include conversations with researchers around the world. Renaud Pourpre and Jonathan Weitzman will talk to inspiring people to learn about their habits and recommendations for all scientists. Don’t stay alone, come join The Lonely Pipette community!
The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science
TLP #24 : The untold power of philosophy - Thomas Pradeu
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Jonathan Weitzman & Renaud Pourpre
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Season 2
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Episode 14
This week, we meet our first philosopher guest - Thomas Pradeu tells us what scientist can learn from philosophers
- Thomas shares his journey navigating from philosophy to immunology and biology
- He explains the difference between ‘philosophy IN biology’ compared to ‘philosophy OF biology’
- He mentions ‘mutual ignorance’ - that scientists often don’t know about philosophers who would be interested in their science
- Thomas argues that philosophers should be brought in at the beginning of a project rather than at the end. He describes his model for embedding philosophers within a biology research environment
- He gives lots of specific examples, from immunology and beyond, where philosophers made an impact on science by intervening upstream
- Thomas stresses the importance of challenging the foundations (in the lab and at home)
- He also stresses the importance of reading every day
- Thomas talks honestly about the difficulties of improving life-work balance and gender balance in academia
- Thomas is proud of his success in creating examples of the Philosophy IN Biology networks as a model for interdisciplinary collaboration
He mentioned these researchers/philosophers
- Jean Gayon : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Gayon
- Edgardo Carosella : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_D._Carosella
- David Hull : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hull_(philosopher)
- Elliott Sober : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_Sober
- Ernst Mayr : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mayr
- Richard Dawkins : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
- Stephen Paget : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Paget
- Lucie Laplane : https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/personne/lucie-laplane
- Francis Bacon : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon
- Dick Lewontin : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin
To find out more about Thomas visit his websites or follow him on Twitter
- Website : https://www.u-bordeaux.fr/universite/espace-presse/repertoire-dexperts/thomas-pradeu
- ImmunoConcept Lab : https://immunoconcept.cnrs.fr/conceptual-biology-medicine/
- PhilInBioMed: Institute for Philosophy in Biology and Medicine : https://www.philinbiomed.org/
- Thomas on Twitter : https://twitter.com/pradeu?lang=en
To find out more about Renaud and Jonathan :
- Twitter : https://twitter.com/LePourpre
- LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/renaudpourpre/
- Twitter : https://twitter.com/Epigenetique
- LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanweitzman/%20
More about the soundtrack :
Music by Amaria - Lovely Swindler https://soundcloud.com/amariamusique/