The Theory of Genetics: Articulating and Formalizing Theories of Biological Information

All of science is driven by theory. Yet, most scientists, especially in biology, are unaware of or unable to articulate the theories that drive their research. This workshop is the latest step in an ongoing project to make the theories that drive biology explicit. The goals of this project are: 

1. To formalize general and specific theories across the entirety of biology, doing for the rest of biology what Darwin did for evolution, and, 

2. To articulate a process that any biologist can use to further such formalization. This workshop will focus on the domain of genetics. The domain of the theory of genetics, sensu latu, is about how information flows in biological systems, not just in the narrow sense via DNA and RNA, but including feedbacks during ontogeny, transgenerational effects, and alterations of the environment, among others. 

We will create a general framework that articulates all of these pathways, and unite them through the use of information theory, especially semiotics. The workshop will include theoretical biologists, empirical biologists, and philosophers. We will challenge workshop participants to create constitutive theories for subdomains of genetics, and the intersections of genetics with other domains of biology.