Defending life : the nature of host-parasite relations / Elling Ulvestad.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ulvestad, Elling.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Host-parasite relationships--Immunological aspects.

Host-parasite relationships.

Physical Description:

xix, 241 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Dordrecht : Springer, 2007.

Summary:

Defending Life discusses the relationship between hosts and parasites. A major contention of the book is that the immune system depends ontologically on the ecosystem in which it is embedded; it would not have the features it has if it was not related in one way or other to parasitic agents and to the host's own cells and tissues. To sustain the argument, life is investigated at all layers - from molecules up through cells, organisms and ecosystems. Together with the inverse course, which goes from ecological contingencies down to gene-expression profiles, the approach facilitates an advanced understanding of immunocompetence as well as its converse, immunoincompetence. The emphasis on analytical abstractions, coherent patterns and generative mechanisms makes possible the distinction between genuine causality and coincidental associations, and thus increases the understanding of why we observe what we observe. The book contains detailed descriptions of the immune system and the microbial world as well as methodological and conceptual clarifications. It will be of interest not only to biologists, medical scientists, physicians and philosophers of science, but also microbiologists and immunologists. Many of the discussions are also relevant for students at both the graduate and PhD levels.

Contents:

1 Tracks of thought 1

1.1 Organismal maintenance 2

Protoimmunology 2

A Sort of Struggle Between the Parasite and Its Prey 5

Towards a Unified View 8

The side-chain theory 8

Instructive theories 9

The clonal selection theory 10

Generation of diversity 10

The hapten-carrier puzzle 11

Adjuvancy 13

1.2 The war metaphor 14

1.3 Metaimmunological musings 18

Speculative Thinking 18

Two opinions 18

Self and other 19

Metaimmunology 19

Mediating dualism 21

Participant and spectator 24

Abduction 26

Evaluation of Hypotheses 29

The thought collective 29

The frame of reference 31

A likelihood rationale 34

The Mishap of Theory 36

Theory in immunological practice 36

Explanation and prediction 37

Predictive accuracy 40

Simplicity versus complexity 40

Parsimony and fit to reality 41

Instrumental realism 42

2 Immunobiology 45

2.1 The received view 46

Patterns of Interaction 46

The innate and adaptive subsystems 46

Stratified security 47

Design principles 48

Equipping the Adaptive Toolbox 51

Lymphopoiesis 51

Selection within 52

Selection by antigen 53

Exemption Explained 54

Memory 54

Specificity 59

Tolerance 63

2.2 The integrated view 65

Revising the View 65

Immunocompetence 67

The One and the Many 71

2.3 The lens metaphor 76

3 Adaptive plasticity 81

3.1 Being-in-the-world 83

The Knower and the Known 83

Worldliness 86

The Self 88

The tripartite self 88

The endangered self 90

The immune self 92

Subject, object - both or neither? 92

The emerging self 93

A relation which relates to itself 94

3.2 Signalling behaviour 97

Signs Matter 97

Laws and rules 97

Biosemiotics 101

Sign-phenomenology 102

Immunosemiosis 105

The Reliability of Signs 108

3.3 Signal, decision, response 109

Tuning the Threshold 109

The Signal Detection Framework 110

Discrimination 113

4 Natura naturans 117

4.1 Situating life 118

Life's Nebulous Nature 118

The demarcation problem 118

Unearthing the common ancestor 119

Tracking life 121

Transcendence 121

Process 122

Pattern 123

The Composite Organism 125

Conflict vs. integration 125

Development 126

Modularity 127

Self-Maintenance 129

Embodied drive 129

Autopoiesis 132

Apoptosis 134

4.2 Social evolution 136

Co-Operation and Conflict 136

Social behaviour 136

Altruism and spitefulness 138

Multi-level selection 140

Shaping the Multicellular Organism 140

Communal unicellular organisms 140

Transitions in individuality 142

The rules they are achanging 142

Vulnerability to cheating 143

Conflict modification 144

Evolvability 145

Constraints on Social Evolution 146

The self-other divide 146

The costs of self-defence 147

Evolution of defence mechanisms 150

4.3 Coevolutionary dynamics 151

Endosymbiosis 151

Symbiogenesis 151

The mitochondrion 153

Transposable elements 154

Attack and Defence 155

The works of Sisyphus 155

Virulence 156

Multi-level dynamics 160

The "Lucky Split" Hypothesis and the Evolution of Antigen Binding Receptors 162

The immunological big bang 162

RAG-insertion 164

The received repertoire 165

The birth and death model 165

Selection for variability 167

Coping with autoreactive receptors 169

5 Disabled defences 173

5.1 Failure to perform 173

Goal-Directedness 173

Malfunctioning 175

The Disposable Organism 177

5.2 The re-enacting of ancient conflicts 179

The Evolution and Disruption of Individuality 179

Intraorganismal Parasitism 181

Infection 181

Chimerism 182

Mosaicism 184

Autoimmunity - A Conflict Amongst Evolutionary Individuals 186

Associations to be explained 186

Proximate explanations 188

An ultimate explanation 189

Contesting the explanandum 189

Organismal integrity - a precarious undertaking 191

Stocktaking 193

5.3 Environmental challenges 198

Resources Count, Decisions Amount 198

Allergy - The Spatio-Temporal Mismatch Hypothesis 199

Crossing Barriers 202.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-234) and index.

ISBN:

1402056753

9781402056758

1402056761

9781402056765

OCLC:

77257379