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"Life – Digital – Health"
2021-2022

2021-2022 series

convened by Giuseppe Longo and Maël Montévil

Presentation

In biology as in medicine, digital technology has long played an increasingly important role as a technical tool, from statistical evidence to massive databases and publication. But it also plays the role of a mathematical model, or even a conceptual framework for a theoretical approach and for a justification of action. From the myth of the genetic programme, of DNA as the complete coding of biological information, we have moved on to the great promises of precision medicine, based on correlations detected in large databases, to the individuation of care (’personalised medicine’) based on genetic data.

Alternative scientific paths have had difficulty finding their way in the past and are still marginalised today. Epigenetics, even if restricted to the molecular analysis of the cell proteome, has only recently found a place in organismal biology. A unitary vision of the latter is not yet satisfactorily theorised and is rarely at the heart of research projects, especially the most important ones, concentrating resources on essentially technological projects. It is therefore difficult to think theoretically about the clinician’s overall view of the patient, the biologist’s view of the organism and its ecosystem. What role has digital technology had and continues to have in the development of new technologies in biology and medicine, what constructive contribution and what biases has it produced following these applications?

We will try to analyse the historical path that has led to a new alliance between a vision, specific to the digital, of scientific ’determination’, which structures causality, and a cultural hegemony of digital tools, which organise the social. A dialogue between scientists and humanists is at the heart of our project. We believe that the epistemology of mathematics and physics has played an important role in the construction of knowledge of the living during the 20th century and that their impact on humans has been subordinated to forms of "governance" of man and nature that have shaped research in all sciences. The aim is to understand the articulation of this impact in recent years, when Big Data and, consequently, "personalized medicine", have increased the role of data collection from all "-omics" (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics ...), molecule by molecule. The aim of this research is to place the organism, the human and the social, seen in their relationship to the ecosystem, at the centre of concerns in the life sciences.

We believe that, through a general reflection, this seminar could also touch on some current issues such as the transformations of health systems that the Covid 19 pandemic has helped to highlight. In particular, the following issues could be addressed:

  • the impasses of health governance by numbers (particularly those of New Public Management in the hospital sector);
  • the rise in power of IT tools in the prevention and treatment of diseases;
  • the conflict between the logics of universal access to care and the assimilation of medical goods to market services;
  • the link between economic globalisation and the rise of new health risks;
  • the diversity of health insurance systems;
  • international solidarity in the health field.

Jeudi, 6 janvier 2022

2:30 - INTRODUCTION

by Maël MONTEVIL, La République des savoirs

2:40 - THE PROLETARIANIZATION OF BIOLOGICAL THOUGHT

Ana SOTO, Tufts University School of Medicine, USA, IAS Fellow 2021-2022

Abstract

Unlike the proletarianization of artisans, the proletarianization of biologists did not start by a technique driven simplification of laboratory work, but by the way of theory. This conceptual impoverishment started with the idea that biology could be reduced to chemistry and physics, and that cells and organisms are analogous to machines, including computers. Later, biologists reassigned fundamental concepts that characterized organisms to non-living entities and questioned the relevance of the organism concept. Additionally, they introduced notions from the mathematical theories of information without an appropriate critical analysis of their pertinence to biology. Proletarianization was further achieved by the simplification of laboratory practices introduced by commercial assay kits producing numerical outputs. As a consequence, scientists concentrated their efforts on generating immense amounts of data. Now, they willingly transfer the task of generating hypotheses to computers and “data scientists”. While this theoretical impoverishment was taking place, a minority of biologists began to elaborate a philosophical stance, organicism, providing starting points for reconstructing biological theory. We posit that this theoretical impoverishment can be corrected using an organicist perspective for the construction of relevant and precise biological theories.

Additional sources of proletarianization are current managerial practices that restrict scientific judgement like the use of bibliometrics to evaluate scientific output and the acceleration of work under pressure to publish massively and rapidly for the sake of personal career advancement. A critical engagement towards theory construction may lead scientists to overcome and eliminate these proletarianizing factors.

15:40 - GENERAL DISCUSSION

Chaired by Maël MONTEVIL, La République des savoirs

To watch the conference online

Subject: IAS-Nantes - Workshop "Life - Digital - Health" - Thursday 6 January 202 - 2:30pm (UTC+2)

 

Link to the Zoom meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81011831417?pwd=d3VXVGhrYXA2aVNRM0FmeEVoTUpkQT09

 

ID: 810 1183 1417

Password: numerique

Past sessions

Intervention de Yaovi Akakpo

Programme

2:30 - INTRODUCTION

by Maël MONTEVIL, La République des savoirs

2:40 - RESILIENCE OF TRADITIONAL AFRICAN MEDICINE

Transformation of medical knowledge/procedures and the paradigm of natural medicine

Yaovi AKAKPO, University of Lomé, IAS Fellow 2017-2018

Abstract

It is still remarkable, in the cities and villages of Africa, that the therapeutic itineraries of many patients are often back and forth between traditional doctors and hospitals/centres. The reality is that, despite colonial and post-colonial regulations, which are particularly discriminatory towards it, traditional medicine in contemporary African societies is far from anecdotal. There is a resilience in African traditional medicine that cannot be justified, from a purely and simply sociological point of view, by the cost of treatment within the reach of the poor.
From an epistemological point of view, the resilient potential of traditional African medicine, in the face of conventional and dominant medicine, can be seen both in the belief or adherence of patients to its procedures and in the critical but rewarding relationship that hospital practices, botanical and pharmacological research now have with it.
The paper attempts to clarify the resilient potential of traditional African medicine on the basis of ethnographic data collected in southern Togo on traditional diagnostic and therapeutic practices and their new relationship with hospital practices, botanical and pharmacological research. Such an epistemological appreciation, which pays particular attention to the new and contemporary process of transformation of the knowledge and procedures of African traditional medicine, can help to elucidate what the paradigm of a natural medicine can be.

Biography

Yaovi Akakpo is a philosopher and full professor at the University of Lomé, Togo, where he heads the Laboratory of History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science and Technology. He studied at the University of Lomé and at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. He holds a doctorate in Epistemology and a doctorate in History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science. Akakpo is the author of L’horizon des sciences en Afrique (Peter Lang, 2009), La recherche en philosophie (L’Harmattan, 2012), Science et reconnaissance (Présence africaine, 2016), Le technocolonialisme (L’Harmattan, 2019). Three books published under his direction in 2021 are Accélération et innovation : notions en débats (L’Harmattan, 2021), Humanités numériques et innovation en Afrique (L’Harmattan, 2021), and Aménagement du territoire et sentiers d’économie en Afrique : fonction du bricolage technologique (L’Harmattan, 2021). His research is concerned with scientific and technical transmutations in Africa, the challenges of invention and innovation, the history of science in African oral archives and manuscripts, imagination in science, and the powers of the body.

15:40 - GENERAL DISCUSSION

Chaired by Maël MONTEVIL, La République des savoirs