biology

J. Scott Turner

J. Scott Turner is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand J. Scott Turner rather than just read about it. In short: J. Scott Turner (born 11 August 1951) is an American physiologist who has contributed to the theory of collective intelligence through his fieldwork on the South African species of termite Macrotermes michaelseni, suggesting the architectural complexity and sophistication of their mounds as an instance of his theory of the extended organism or superorganism.

Key takeaways

J. Scott Turner belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect J. Scott Turner to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of J. Scott Turner from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

J. Scott Turner (born 11 August 1951) is an American physiologist who has contributed to the theory of collective intelligence through his fieldwork on the South African species of termite Macrotermes michaelseni, suggesting the architectural complexity and sophistication of their mounds as an instance of his theory of the extended organism or superorganism. His theory was reviewed in a range of journals, including Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, the New York Times Book Review, EMBO Reports, and American Scientist.

Research Working at the interface among physiology, evolution and design led Turner to formulate the idea of the Extended Organism, reviewed in a range of journals, including Nature. Turner's current research focuses on the emergence of super-organismal structure and function in mound-building termites of southern Africa (Macrotermes). His extended organism idea was inspired by his work on termite mounds that clarified how the mound functions as an external lung for respiratory gas exchange for the colony as a whole. His prior work on the thermal capacity of incubated birds' eggs showed that an egg with an embryo and an incubating parent function not as two separate organisms but as a coupled physiological unit. Building upon this empirical work, Turner has argued that the principle of homeostasis is a fundamental property of living systems that accounts for, among other things, the phenomenon of biological design. With this argument, Turner counters both Intelligent Design and strong Darwinism, showing how natural selection is complemented by other factors. Turner proposes that modern evolutionary theory overemphasizes genetic natural selection and a tendency to separate information from catalysis at the molecular level. By connecting information and catalysis, epigenesis coupled with homeostasis exemplifies the internal, directive capacities of the organism, linking information and behavior. Turner has also suggested that termite mounds exemplify collective intelligence via a form of swarm cognition that is a model for the emergence of cognitive systems in a variety of contexts, including, but not limited to, self-contained nervous systems. The extended organism principle also justifies the Gaia Hypothesis and considers what we can translate from micro to macro, whether principles that govern termites offer a perspective on mind. He is an adviser to the Microbes Mind Forum and Professor of Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse, New York. Under a grant from the Templeton Foundation, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University while writing his third book, "Purpose and Desire", which builds the case that evolution operates through the complementary principles of Darwinian natural selection (biology's "First Law") coupled to homeostasis (biology's "Second Law").

Publications Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something Alive and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It (2017) The Tinkerer's Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself (2007) The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures (2000)

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with J. Scott Turner

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what J. Scott Turner claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to J. Scott Turner before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about J. Scott Turner ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of J. Scott Turner

In research: J. Scott Turner appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses J. Scott Turner in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: J. Scott Turner is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, American physiologists, Extended evolutionary synthesis, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for J. Scott Turner outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study J. Scott Turner in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what J. Scott Turner means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain J. Scott Turner out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is J. Scott Turner in simple terms?

Why does J. Scott Turner matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study J. Scott Turner?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on J. Scott Turner.