Click HERE for the Call for papers
Please note that the deadline for submissions has been extended until the end of April 2022. All submissions will be sent to our program review committee for expedited review and decision letters will be sent as soon as decisions are made by the committee.
JPS 2022: Putting Development Back into Evolution
June 2-4, 2022
Philadelphia Marriott Old City, 1 Dock Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106
Robert Lickliter, David Moore, and David Witherington (Organizers)
Peter Marshall (Local Organizing Chair) and Cynthia Lightfoot (Hotel Arrangements)
Registration for JPS 2022 is now open and will remain open through the conference!
The submission deadline has now passed.
To register for the conference, you must first become a member. To become a JPS member, you must first make an account on the JPS membership site; once you have an account, you can then pay your membership.
If you are already a member, please sign into your account on the membership site to register for the conference.
Registration Fees
$275 USD for regular members
$145 USD for student members/post-doc/emeritus/retired members- reduced rate
Reduced Membership Fees
Residents of certain countries are eligible for a 50% reduction in fees (based on World Bank categories for lending eligibility); please click on the “Help” tab on the membership site for more information.
Hotel
Our conference will take place in the newly refurbished Philadelphia Marriott Old City, located at 1 Dock Street. We have secured a reduced hotel room rate of $209 USD per night (plus taxes) for conference registrants. Our rooms will be held until May 11th so please book your rooms now.
To reserve a hotel room, please visit the Member site. Once you create an account and become a member for 2022, you’ll be able to view hotel reservation information.
Description of Conference Theme:
Development impacts evolutionary processes. The question is how? In much of pre-Darwinian thought, individual development was considered a primary driver of evolutionary change. This view changed radically in the early decades of the 20th century with the advent of neo-Darwinism or the “Modern Synthesis.” With its restriction of inheritance to genetics and its promotion of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary change, 20th century evolutionary biology effectively wrote individual development out of the evolutionary picture. In the process, evolutionary biology promoted nativist conceptualizations of normative developmental phenomena by suggesting that these phenomena are merely byproducts of natural selection.
The 51st Jean Piaget Society Annual Meeting program focuses on the movement currently underway in both the biological and developmental sciences to reestablish and re-conceptualize the role of individual development in evolutionary theory. The invited program will examine the theoretical and empirical impetus behind recent calls for an “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” one concerned with how developmental processes play a role in evolutionary change as well as how evolutionary processes play a role in developmental change. In particular, the invited program will provide a survey of perspectives on whether these recent advances in biology, psychology, and philosophy compel a thoroughgoing revision of evolutionary theory and its applications to human development. Such a revision would place the developmental sciences where they belong: at the center of a theory of the evolution of phenotypes. The resulting change in perspective would have numerous practical consequences for developmental psychology, including encouraging research on developmental processes per se, reinvigorating appreciation of the importance of variability and diversity, and undermining false notions of genetic determinism that have had a number of negative consequences for society.
Plenary Speakers and Topics:
Plenary 1: Development and Evolution Reconceived: Lessons from Process Ontology
Anne Sophie Meincke (University of Vienna)
Abstract: According to a new movement within the philosophy of biology, living beings are to be conceived of not as substances or things but as processes. So-called process philosophy of biology, or process biology, draws on what is more generally known as process ontology: a long, albeit mostly marginalised, philosophical tradition of understanding reality in dynamical terms. In my talk, I show how the right version of process ontology and, hence, of process biology can help improve biological concepts of development and evolution. More particularly, I argue that process biology offers valuable resources for a prospective Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, as currently advocated for by a growing number of biologists. The so far prevalent neo-Darwinian tendency to disregard development in favor of genetic explanations of evolutionary change is rooted in problematic thing ontological presumptions, whereas the recent (re-)discovery of the evolutionary relevance of development and organismal agency calls for acknowledging the processual nature of life and living beings.
Plenary 2: The agency of the environment in directing development: Plasticity and symbiosis
Scott F. Gilbert (Swarthmore College)
Abstract: The phenotype of the organism is not directed solely by the genome of its nuclei. Rather, recent studies have shown that important physical and behavioral traits of the organism depend on the external environment. Two biotic factors that influence development are physical contact and symbionts. First, recent findings have shown that physical contact can change the morphological and behavioral phenotypes of insects such as locusts and vertebrates such as mice. This physical contact is mediated through hormones that then change gene expression in the developing animal. Second, symbionts have been found to work within the body to generate several types of cells, including those of the immune system and nervous system. Moreover, changes in symbionts can lead to changes in evolution. Together, developmental plasticity and developmental symbiosis complement developmental genetics in the formation and evolution of the organism.
Plenary 3: The Organism as an Adaptive Agent of Evolutionary Change
Denis M. Walsh (University of Toronto)
Abstract: The Modern Synthesis of gene theory with the theory of evolution focused on the molecular level of analysis. Recent advances in evolutionary theory propose that evolutionary change is more of an ecological phenomenon, requiring an organism-and-environment level of analysis. This shift in evolutionary theory has resulted in the rejection of the notion of a passive organism and a growing appreciation of the active role of the organism in evolutionary change. The speaker will review the importance of the role of organismic activity and, in particular, the importance of niche construction, to the evolutionary process and the implications for how we approach both development and evolution.
Plenary 4: Interacting networks in social landscapes
Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv University and London School of Economics & Political Science)
Abstract: Can the study of epigenetics, physiology and cognitive science contribute to the study of social-cultural systems while respecting the autonomy of social research? I present a developmental system theory (DST) approach, which takes the unit of analysis to be the system of self-sustaining interactions among multiple biological, psychological and social resources. On this systems view, which was central to Piaget’s approach to child’s development, the cybernetic architecture of dynamically interacting networks channels development, so that different trajectories lead to convergent end-states, accounting for the system’s developmental stability, as well as shedding light on the conditions that lead to departures from typical outcomes. I suggest that Waddington’s epigenetic landscape metaphor, which was built to illustrate the relationship between genetic networks and embryological development is a useful tool for thinking about the dynamics of social systems, capturing some important features of social re-production. I discuss current usages of this metaphor that illustrate the difficulties of translating it into the social realm, but that also point to its productivity and to its potential to bridge traditional disciplinary divides.
Invited Symposia:
1) Rethinking Genetics, Epigenetics, and Inheritance, chaired by David S. Moore (Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate University)
Speakers:
Stuart Newman (New York Medical College)
Isabelle Mansuy (University of Zürich & ETH)
David S. Moore (Pitzer College & Claremont Graduate University)
2) Developmental Psychobiological Systems Theory, chaired by Robert Lickliter (Florida International University).
Speakers:
Robert Lickliter (Florida International University)
George Michel (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)
3) Historical Links between Developmental and Evolutionary thought, chaired by Jeremy Burman (University of Groningen).
Speakers: TBD
4) Development within Multi-Dimensional Complex Systems: Evolutionary Processes, Individual Development and Participation in Cultural Practices, chaired by Carol Lee (Northwestern University)
Speakers:
Carol D. Lee (Northwestern University)
Michael Cole (University of California, San Diego)and Martin Packer (The Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition)
Andrew Meltzoff (University of Washington, Seattle)
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (University of Southern California)
