An Attempt at Formalising the Species Concept
- When?
- Wednesday 4 August 2010, 15:30 to 16:30
- Where?
- 39BB02
- Open to:
- Students, Staff
- Speaker:
- Dr Andre Gruening
Computer Scientists have a tendency to look at the systems they model and research from the angle of computer simulations. However, to clarify the nature of objects we simulate and mode, it is often worth to lean back and think a bit deeper out the nature of objects we are dealing with in a formal and mathematical framework since this can bring inconsistencies to light and give directions for new simulations.
In this talk I want to share some initial ideas about how to formalise the biological concept of "species". Any biological definition of species seems to me fairly loose and it does not become clear what a biologist really means when they talk about a species. Their various definitions seem in any case too static and not to take development in time or interaction with the environment seriously.
I will try to show a way to clearer concepts of species using methods from the domains of dynamical systems and iterated mappings.
The talk is intended as much as an example of mathematical modeling as such as it is trying to shed some light on the concept of species.
