The Lonely Pipette : helping scientists do better science

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/