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Introduction: Issues About Robustness in the Practice of Biological Sciences

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Biological Robustness

Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences ((HPTL,volume 23))

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Abstract

Robustness has lately become a bridging notion, in particular across the sciences of the natural and the artificial, crucial for prediction and control of natural and artificial systems in recent scientific practice, in biomedicine, neurobiology and engineering, as well as for risk management, planning and policy in ecology, healthcare, markets and economy. From biological, neurological and societal systems, arising by the interplay of self-organizing dynamics and environmental pressures, to the current sophisticated engineering that aims at artificially reproducing the adaptability and resilience of living systems in front of perturbations in man-made devices, robustness seems to hold the key for orchestrating stability and change. This introduction offers a general survey of the contribution that the notion of robustness is providing to reframing major concepts within the life sciences, such as development, evolution, time and environment, and to reframing the relationship between biology and engineering, as well as between biology and physics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A very long list of terms identify, in different disciplines, cognate notions that bear important affinities with robustness. Some terms have to do with the current organization of a system, e.g., resilience , homeostasis/negative feedbacks , dynamical stability, plasticity, functional/functioning. Other terms are more change-related, e.g., homeorhesis , evolutionary stasis , canalization/entrenchment , evolvability ; and more generic terms such as persistence , lawlike/lawful, invariance, entropy . Such linguistic richness and redundancy is both an obstacle and an interesting point of departure for interdiciplinary work on robustness.

  2. 2.

    “First Interdisciplinary Workshop on Robustness”, Robustness in Biological Systems, University Campus Bio-Medico, Rome, October 14–15, 2014. A special methodology was experimented: philosophers and scientists gave short, focused talks and then interacted in groups by means of a sound and designed methodology. Group discussions were held in which each participant, being an expert of his/her own field, focusing on examples more than on definitions , then reported their conclusions, disagreements, and collective views.

  3. 3.

    “Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Robustness”, Robustness – Engineering Science, University Campus Bio-Medico in Rome, February 5–6, 2015. Goal of the workshop was to hold interdisciplinary discussions on relevant areas such as: (a) macromolecular robustness: stability of macromolecules, ability to react to environmental changes without modifying their functionality ; (b) material resistance: mechanical resistance , brittleness, hardness are all material properties, that reflect the ability of solid objects to resist to deformations; (c) biological dynamics and robustness: the analysis of patterns of evolution of biological systems upon perturbation, considered in a theoretical physics and Systems Engineering frame ; (d) autonomous systems: the ontological definition of autonomy as mirrored in mathematical modelling of systems evolving on their own, on the base of a self-consistent dynamics; autonomy as the basis of robust system design, thought to be resilient towards attacks or faults; (e) resilience, as the specific property of systems to return to the previous equilibrium state after perturbation; (f) environmental robustness, understood in the objective sense of the sustainability, at the ecological scale , of the interactions between human production systems and environment, and crucial for the assessment of affirmative sustainability principles; (g) software robustness, as the ability of an algorithm or of a program to cope with errors or abnormalities during execution, an acceptation strictly related to the management of increasing computational complexity.

  4. 4.

    “Third Interdisciplinary Workshop on Robustness”, Robustness in Neurological Systems, held on 2015, November 13–15 at the University of Pittsburgh.

  5. 5.

    To enlarge the context from natural selection only, we should mention that Kitano and Oda (2006) argue that enhancement of robustness in evolution may happen through symbiosis . They refer to major biological innovations such as horizontal gene transfer, serial endosymbiosis, oocytes-mediated vertical infection, and host-symbiont mutualism for bacterial flora. For Kitano and Oda, symbiosis contributes to robustness – in the evolutionary sense – because symbiotic foreign biological entities can enhance the adaptive capacity of a system against environmental perturbations as well as contribute novel functions. The degree of symbiosis achieved can vary from tight integration into the genome (much more frequent in the ancient eras of life) to loose integration as in bacterial flora (a more recent strategy ). Again, robustness and plasticity are complementary interpretative lenses of biological evolution. Loose symbioses are highly adaptive, the most dramatic example being immune systems (Feinerman et al. 2008) and bacterial flora in which substantial functions of host defense depends on the proper maintenance of symbionts and their adaptive capability.

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Acknowledgements

So many people must be thanked for this volume. Fist of all we need to thank all the authors who have accepted to contribute a chapter for this volume. But our gratitude needs necessarily to extend to all those who have participated with great enthusiasm and generosity to the three Robustness Workshops held by the Bio-Techno-Practice Research Hub, as well as those who have served ad advisors for the same workshops, along with their institutions: Alessandro Giuliani, Alfred Nordmann, Alfredo Marcos, Alison Barth, Alvaro Moreno, Anna Maria Dieli, Arnon Levy, Dino Accoto, Edwin Morley-Fletcher, Emilio Bizzi, Flavio Keller, Gabriele Oliva, Giuseppe Vitiello, Guido Caniglia, Jane Maienschein, Lorenzo Farina, Luca Valera, Luisa Di Paola, Marcella Trombetta, Marco Buzzoni, Mazviita Chirimuta, Miles MacLeod, Nicola Di Stefano, Philippe Huneman, Raffaella Campaner, Sandra D. Mitchell, Simonetta Filippi, Timothy O’Leary, Trey Boone, Viola Schiaffonati. Very special thanks goes to Sandra Mitchell who supported this initiative since the beginning, being active in all phases of the process, from workshop organization to post-workshop elaboration. For institutional and material support, we are grateful to the Institute for Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice (FAST) at University Campus Bio-Medico, Rome and to the Centre for Philosphy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh (PA). For sponsoring the workshops, we must thank Fondazione Cattolica Assicurazioni, M3V ONLUS and the Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno (ISPF) of Italian CNR. Finally, we need to thank Philippe Huneman who, as series editor, believed in publishing this volume. We thank also the other series editors and staff at Springer who have done a patient and wonderful job in all phases of the book production.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departmental Faculty of Engineering and FAST, Institute for Philosophy of Scientific and Technological Practice, University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Marta Bertolaso

  2. CISEPS – Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Economics, Psychology and Social Sciences, University of Milano Bicocca, Brescia, Italy

    Emanuele Serrelli

  3. Institute for the History of Philosophy and Science in Modern Age (ISPF), National Research Council, Naples, Italy

    Silvia Caianiello

  4. Zoological Station Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy

    Silvia Caianiello

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Correspondence to Emanuele Serrelli .

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  1. FAST Institute of Philosophy of Scientific Practice and Faculty of Engineering, University Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Marta Bertolaso

  2. Institute for the History of Philosophy and Science in Modern Age (ISPF), Italian National Research Council, Naples, Italy

    Silvia Caianiello

  3. CISEPS - Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Economics, Psychology and Social Sciences, University of Milano Bicocca CISEPS, Brescia, Italy

    Emanuele Serrelli

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Bertolaso, M., Serrelli, E., Caianiello, S. (2018). Introduction: Issues About Robustness in the Practice of Biological Sciences. In: Bertolaso, M., Caianiello, S., Serrelli, E. (eds) Biological Robustness. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01198-7_1

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