Henri Atlan is a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 biophysicist and philosopher.

Born to a Jewish family in French Algeria

French Algeria

French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...

, Atlan gained degrees in medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 and biophysics

Biophysics

Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physical science to study biological systems. Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms and ecosystems...

 at the University of Paris

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

 (now University Paris Diderot) . He then moved to the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 working on aging and mutation. Influenced by Heinz von Foerster

Heinz von Foerster

Heinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics.-Biography:Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria,...

, he became interested in applying cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

 and information theory

Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...

 to living organisms, and went to the Weizmann Institute in Jerusalem to work under the biophysicist Aharon Katchalsky. Returning to Paris in 1972, his publications from that year on information theory and self-organizing systems achieved a wide readership. He taught biophysics at the Hôtel-Dieu

Hôtel-Dieu

Hôtel-Dieu is the old name given to the principal hospital in French towns, for instance:*The Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon, created in 1478...

 in Paris and the Hadassah Medical Center

Hadassah Medical Center

Hadassah Medical Center is a medical organization that operates two University hospitals at Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel, as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.The hospital was founded by Hadassah,...

 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

. His participation with Francisco Varela

Francisco Varela

Francisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...

 at a conference in Cerisy-la-Salle

Cerisy-la-Salle

-See also:* Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle* Communes of the Manche department...

 encouraged interest in cognitive science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

 in France. Atlan was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre de Recherche en Epistémelogie Appliquée

Centre de Recherche en Epistémelogie Appliquée

The Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée — the Center for Research in Applied Epistemology — conducts research in humanities and the social sciences...

 (CREA) at the École Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

, and was appointed in 1983 to the Comité Consultatif National d'Éthique pour la Sciences de a Vie et de la Santé

Comité Consultatif National d'Ethique

The Comité Consultatif National d'Ethique is a French governmental advisory council on bioethics issues. It was created by a presidential decree of François Mitterrand in 1983....

 (National Advisory Committee on Ethics in the Life Sciences and Medicine). He has been appointed to a chair in the philosophy of biology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...

.

He is also a member of Collegium International

Collegium International

International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, also called Collegium International is a high-level group created in 2002.-Origin:...

, an organization of leaders with political, scientific, and ethical expertise whose goal is to provide new approaches in overcoming the obstacles in the way of a peaceful, socially just and an economically sustainable world.

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