Stuart Alan Kauffman (28 September 1939) is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as well as for applying models of Boolean networks to simplified genetic circuits.
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Biography
In January of 2010 Kauffman will be joining the University of Vermont faculty where he would continue his work with UVM's Complex Systems Center. Of his new position at the University of Vermont Kauffman says: "I'm very happy to be coming to UVM, I'm drawn by the bright young faculty in the Complex Systems Center and the great work I think we'll be able to do as a team, as well as by the investments the university has made in complex systems and advanced computing and its strong support for cross-disciplinary research. I'm especially intrigued by Dr. Grasso's vision of making UVM the Santa Fe Institute of the east,and look forward to making that vision a reality."
In January of 2009 Kauffman became a Finland Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) at Tampere University of Technology, in the Computational Systems Biology Research group, led by Professor Olli Yli-Harja. The FiDiPro research project, that will be ongoing until the end of 2012, aims at developing delayed stochastic models of genetic regulatory networks able to simulate the dynamics of genetic regulatory networks at the single molecule level.
Kauffman held a joint appointment at the University of Calgary in Biological Sciences and Physics and Astronomy. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. He is an iCORE (Informatics Research Circle of Excellence) [1] chair and the director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics.
He graduated from Dartmouth in 1960, was awarded the BA (Hons) by Oxford University in 1963, and completed a medical degree (M.D.) at the University of California, San Francisco in 1968. After completing his residency in Emergency Medicine, he moved into developmental genetics of the fruitfly, holding appointments first at the University of Chicago, then at the University of Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1995, where he rose to Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Kauffman held a MacArthur Fellowship, 1987-1992.
Kauffman rose to prominence through his association with the Santa Fe Institute (a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems), where he was faculty in residence from 1986 to 1997, and through his work on models in various areas of biology. These included autocatalytic sets in origin of life research, gene regulatory networks in developmental biology, and fitness landscapes in evolutionary biology. Kauffman holds the founding broad biotechnology patents in combinatorial chemistry and applied molecular evolution.[2]
In 1996, Kauffman started BiosGroup, a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based for-profit company that employed complex systems methodology to attempt to solve business problems. BiosGroup was acquired by NuTech Solutions[3] in early 2003. NuTech was bought by Netezza in 2008.
Work
Kauffman is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection.
Some fellow biologists and physicists working in Kauffman's area reserve judgment on Kauffman's claims about self-organization and evolution. A case in point is the introduction to the 2002 book "Self Organization in Biological Systems".[4]
Publications
Select bibliography
- 1993, Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, Oxford University Press, Technical monograph. ISBN 0195079515
- 1995, At Home in the Universe. Oxford University Press.
- 2000, Investigations. Oxford University Press.
- 2008, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. Basic Books - ISBN 0465003001 -
(Video Introduction)
Selected articles
- 1969, "Metabolic stability and epigenesis in randomly constructed genetic nets," in: Journal of Theoretical Biology, 22:437-467, 1969.
- 1991, "Antichaos and Adaptation," in: Scientific American, August 1991.
- 2004, "Prolegomenon to a General Biology", in William A. Dembski, Michael Ruse, eds., Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, Cambridge University Press.
- 2004, "Autonomous Agents", in John D. Barrow, P.C.W. Davies, and C.L. Harper Jr., eds., Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology, and Complexity, Cambridge University Press.
About Stuart Kauffman
- MacKenzie, Dana (2002). "The Science of Surprise", Discover Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 2, 59-63, February 2002.
- Kauffman about Kauffman: (Video)
- Goldstein, Jeffrey A. (2008). Book Review of "Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion", by Stuart Kauffman. In Emergence: Complexity & Organization, 10(3), 117-130.
References
- ^ iCORE Home
- ^ US 5,723,323," Method of identifying a stochastically-generated peptide, polypeptide, or protein having ligand binding property and compositions thereof"
- ^ Letterhead
- ^ http://web.mac.com/camazine/Camazine/Self-organization.html
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External links
- An online chat with Stuart Kauffman on a complexity organization website.
- Video presentation "The adjacent possible" by Kauffman on autonomous agents.
- Biocomplexity and Informatics iCORE Chair.
- Beyond reductionism: Reinventing The Sacred, paper by Kauffman on reductionism.
- Video presentation "Reinventing The Sacred" Stuart Kauffman on his new book. Video talk for a Conference in Doha, Katar, produced, May 17.2008
- SYNCD.org Stuart Kauffman about the need of a "transnational mythic structure"
- Tech Nation discussion with Dr. Moira Gunn on his book "Reinventing the Sacred" (recorded June 6, 2008).
- "God enough" by Steve Paulson Interview with Stuart Kauffman (2008).
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