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Leo Kadanoff

Alison Winter and Adrian Johns (center)

Robert Richards, Gerd Gigerenzer, Lorraine Daston, and the Buddha

Leigh Van Valen, Bil Wimsatt, James Evans conferring
William Wimsatt, Re-engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings
Joseph Masco, The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico

Jan Goldstein, The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750-1850

Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book

Robert J. Richards, The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

George W. Stocking, Jr., Victorian Anthropology

Jan Goldstein, Console and Classify

Arnold Davidson, The Emergence of Sexuality

Robert J. Richards, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior

Stephen Stigler, Statistics on the Table

Karin Knorr Cetina, Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge

George Stocking, Jr., After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888-1951

Alison Winter, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain
Noel Swerdlow, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets

Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe
John Haugeland, Having Thought: Essays in Metaphysics

Howard Margolis, Paradigms and Barriers: How Habits of Mind Govern Scientific Belief

Stephen Stigler, The History of Statistics

George Stocking, Jr., Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology

John Haugland, Mind Design II

Howard Margolis, It Started with Copernicus

George W. Stocking, Jr., The Ethnographer's Magic

Robert J. Richards, The Meaning of Evolution: the Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory
Salikoko S, Mufwene, The Ecology of Language Evolution
Adrian Johns, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars From Gutenberg to Gates
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Current Faculty
LORRAINE DASTON
Visiting Professor of History and Social Thought
Email: ldaston@uchicago.edu
Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor in the Department of History and the Committee on Social Thought. She has published with Katharine Park Wonders and the Order of Nature (New York: Zone Books, 1998), and Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007) with Peter Galison. In spring 1999 she gave the Sir Isaiah Berlin Lectures at Oxford University on "The History of Objectivity."
Publications include:
- Objectivity, Peter Galison (Zone Press, 2007).
- "The Moral Economy of Science", Osiris 10 (1995): 3-24.
- "L'esperienza scientifica e le sue possibile storie," Quaderni Storici 96(1997): 831-838.
- "The Cold Light of Facts and the Facts of Cold Light," in David Rubin, ed., Signs of Early Modern France (Charlottesville: Rockville Press, 1997), pp. 17-44.
- "Fear and Loathing of the Imagination in Science," Daedalus 127(1998): 73-95.
- "Nature by Design," in Caroline A Jones and Peter Galison, eds., Picturing Science, Producing Art (New York/London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 232-253.
- "The Nature of Nature in Early Modern Europe," Configurations 6(1998): 149-172.
- "Probability and Evidence," in Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds. Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 1108-1144.
- Wonders and the Order of Nature (New York: Zone Books, 1998).
- The Moral Authority of Nature, edited with Fernando Vidal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
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ARNOLD DAVIDSON
Professor of Philosophy.
Ph.D. Harvard University. 1981.
Department of Philosophy
The University of Chicago
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8513 -- department
(773) 702-9861 -- fax
(773) 702-9849 -- office
Email (secretary): ehobbs@uchicago.edu
Arnold Davidson works in moral and political philosophy, the history and philosophy of psychiatry and medicine, contemporary French philosophy, and the history of philosophy.
Publications include:
- The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts. Havard University of Press, 2001.
- "Closing up the Corpses: Diseases of Sexuality and the Emergence of the Psychiatric Style of Reasoning," in G. Boolos, ed., Mind, Meaning and Method: Essays in Honor of Hilary Putnam, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
- "Is Rawls A Kantian?," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, January/April, 1985.
- "Archaeology, Genealogy, Ethics," in D. Hoy, ed., Foucault: A Critical Reader, Basil Blackwell, 1986.
- "How to Do the History of Psychoanalysis: A Reading of Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality," Critical Inquiry, Winter, 1987.
- "Questions Concerning Heidegger," Critical Inquiry, Winter, 1989.
- "The Horror of Monsters" in J. Sheehan and M. Sosna, eds., Human, Animals and Machines, University of California Press, 1991.
- "Reading Hadot Reading Plotinus", Introduction to Pierre Hadot. Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, University of Chicago, 1993.
- "Ethics as Ascetics: Foucault, the History of Ethics and Ancient Thought," in J. Goldstein, ed., Foucault, Basil Blackwell, 1994.
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JAMES A. EVANS
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Ph.D. Stanford University. 2004.
The University of Chicago
1126 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 834-3612 -- office
(773) 702-5128 -- fax
E-Mail: jevans@uchicago.edu
For further information about James A. Evans, go to: http://home.uchicago.edu/~jevans/ .
James Evans examines the influence of markets on science and work. In science, Evans' central project explores how collaborations with industry influence academic research in an area of molecular plant biology (all research using the popular model organism Arabidopsis thaliana) by analyzing social and funding networks, scientific texts, bio-informatic databases, and interviews. Evans is also involved in a related project (with Woody Powell) which compares how different industries and their markets differentially shape the sciences they commercialize. In his work, Evans' current project examines the influence of IT contract labor markets on the experience of time, the relationship between developing social and human capital, and the dynamics of labor-brokering (with Stephen Barley and Gideon Kunda). He is co-editing a book on the relationship between work, organization and technology with Steve Barley and Siobhan O'Mahony. Methodologically, Evans is developing new ways to represent and model fields of knowledge, supporting advances in natural language processing and pattern matching, and using quantitative analysis to focus his ethnographic investigations.
Publications include:
- "Nonprofit Research Institutes: From Companies Without Products To Universities Without Students" in Lis Clemens and Doug Guthrie, eds., Politics and Partnerships: Associations and Nonprofit Organizations in American Governance 2006 (forthcoming).
- "Start-ups in Science: Entrepreneurs, New Ventures, and Novelty Outside Business." In Research in the Sociology of Organizations , eds. Martin Ruef and Michael Lounsbury, 2006 (forthcoming).
- "Beach Time, Bridge Time, and Billable Hours: The Temporal Structure of Technical Contracting," Administrative Science Quarterly , 2004.
- "Why Do Contractors Contract? The Experience of Highly Skilled Technical Professionals in a Contingent Labor Market," Industrial and Labor Relations Review , 2002.
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JUDITH B. FARQUHAR
Max Palevsky Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College
Ph.D. University of Chicago. 1986
Judith Farquhar does research on traditional medicine, popular culture, and everyday life in contemporary China. Anthropological areas of interest include medical anthropology; the anthropology of knowledge and of embodiment; critical theory and cultural studies; and theories of reading, writing, and translation.
Publications Include:
- (w/ Zhang Qicheng) Ten Thousand Things: Nurturing Life in Contemporary Beijing, Zone Books (forthcoming).
- (w/ Jun Wang) "'Knowing the Why but Not the How': A Dilemma in Contemporary Chinese Medicine," Asian Medicine (in press).
- "Chinese Medicine as Popular Knowledge in Urban China," in L. Barnes & T.J Hinrichs, eds., Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History, Harvard University Press (forthcoming).
- "Sketching the Dao: Chinese Medicine in Modern Cartoons," in V. Lo, ed., Globalising Chinese Medicine: An Illustrated History, E.J. Brill (forthcoming).
- "The Park Pass: Peopling and Civilizing a New Old Beijing," Public Culture 21(2010), 551-576.
- "How to Live: Reading China's Popular Health Media." In K.K. Liew, ed., Liberalizing, Feminizing, and Popularizing Health Communications in Asia. Ashgate Publishers, 2010.
- (ed. w/ M. Lock) Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life, Duke University Press, 2007.
- "Food, Eating and the Good Life," in C. Tilley, et al., eds., The Sage Handbook of Material Culture. Sage, 2006.
- "Biopolitical Beijing: Pleasure, Sovereignty, and Self-Cultivation in China ’s Capital," Cultural Anthropology 20 (2005):303-327.
- Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, Duke University Press, 2002.
- "Technologies of Everyday Life: The Economy of Impotence in Reform China," Cultural Anthropology 14(1999): 155-179.
- "Rewriting Chinese Medicine in Post-Mao China," in D. Bates, ed., Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- Knowing Practice: The Clinical Encounter in Chinese Medicine, Westview Press, 1994.
- "Multiplicity, Point of View, and Responsibility in Traditional Chinese Medicine," in A. Zito & T. Barlow, eds., Body, Subjectivity and Power in China, University of Chicago Press, 1994.
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MICHAEL FOOTE
Professor of Geophysical Science
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1989
Chair, Geophysical Sciences
Department of the Geophysical Sciences
5734 S. Ellis Ave.
HGS 221
Chicago, IL 60637 USA
Phone: 773/702-4320
E-mail: mfoote@uchicago.edu
My central research questions concern rates of evolution and major features of the diversification of life: how are diversity and evolutionary rates best measured, especially in light of the incompleteness of the fossil record? Are changes in the rate of taxonomic diversification more strongly driven by changes in origination rate or by changes in extinction rate? How and why have the relative contributions of origination and extinction to diversity change varied during the Phanerozoic? How continuous or discontinuous are the true patterns of origination and extinction that underlie the observed record of taxonomic first and last appearances? To address these questions, I use mathematical modeling of evolution and preservation as well as analysis of taxonomic and stratigraphic data.
Publications include:
- Foote, M., and A. I. Miller. 2007. Principles of Paleontology, Third edition. W. H. Freeman, New York.
- Foote, M. 2010. The geologic history of biodiversity. Pp. 479-510 in M. A. Bell, D. J. Futuyma, W.
F. Eanes and J. S. Levinton, eds. Evolution since Darwin: The First 150 Years. Sinauer Associates,
Sunderland, MA.
- Foote, M. 2007. Extinction and quiescence in marine animal genera. Paleobiology 33:262-273.
- Foote, M. 2007. Symmetric waxing and waning of marine animal genera. Paleobiology 33:517-529.
- Foote, M. 2006. Substrate affinity and diversity dynamics of Paleozoic marine animals. Paleobiology
32:345-366.
- Foote, M. 2003. Origination and extinction through the Phanerozoic: a new approach. Journal of
Geology 111:125-148.
- Foote, M. 2001. Evolutionary rates and the age distributions of living and extinct taxa. Pp. 245-294
in J. B. C. Jackson, S. Lidgard, and F. K. McKinney, eds. Evolutionary patterns: growth form and
tempo in the fossil record. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
- Foote, M. 1993. Speciation in the fossil record. American Paleontologist 1(2):9-12.
- Foote, M., and S. J. Gould. 1992. Cambrian and Recent morphological disparity. Science 258:1816.
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JAN GOLDSTEIN
Professor of History.
Ph.D. Columbia University. 1978.
Department of History
The University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street, Mailbox 87
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8397 -- department
(773) 702-7550 -- fax
(773) 702-8388 -- office
E-mail: jegoldstein@midway.uchicago.edu
Jan Goldstein's research and teaching focus on the history of Europe, especially France, from the 18th through the 20th centuries, with an emphasis on the development of the human sciences. She is interested in the multiplicity of ways that formal systems of thought, including the human sciences, are related to socio-political institutions that produce and make use of them. She has published a recent book titled The Post-Revolutionary Self which investigates three competing psychological theories -- sensationalism, the philosophical psychology of Victor Cousin, and phrenology -- which made intensive bids for institutionalization in 19th-century France and hence reveal a good deal about the politics of selfhood in that era.
Publications include:
- Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, 1987; paperback ed., 1990.
- Foucault and the Writing of History (Editor). Blackwell, 1994.
- The Post-Revolutionary Self : Politics and Psyche in France, 1750-1850. Harvard University Press, 2005.
- "Foucault among the Sociologists: The 'Disciplines' and the History of Professions." History and Theory. 1984.
- "The Uses of Male Hysteria: Medical and Literary Discourse in Nineteenth-Century France." Representations. 1991.
- "Foucault and the Post-Revolutionary Self: The Uses of Cousinian Pedagogy in 19th-Century France," in Goldstein, ed., Foucault and the Writing of History (Blackwell, 1994)
- "Saying 'I': Victor Cousin, Caroline Angebert, and the Politics of Selfhood in 19th-Century France," in Michael S. Roth, ed., Rediscovering History (Stanford, 1994)
- "The Advent of Psychological Modernism in France: An Alternate Narrative," in Dorothy Ross, ed., Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences. 1870-1930 (Johns Hopkins, 1994)
- "Enthusiasm or Imagination? Eighteenth-Century Smear Words in Comparative National Context," Huntington Library Quarterly 60 (1998): 29-49
- "Mutations of the Self in Old Regime and Post-Revolutionary France: From Ame to Moi to Le Moi," in Lorraine Daston, ed., Biographies of Scientific Objects (University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 86-116
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ADRIAN JOHNS
Professor of History
Ph.D. Cambridge, 1992.
Chair of Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science
johns@midway.uchicago.edu
Field specialties: History of science; British history; history of intellectual property; history of the book and reading.
Adrian Johns is a professor in the Department of History and the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (University of Chicago Press, 1998), which won the Leo Gershoy Award of the American Historical Association, the John Ben Snow Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies, the Louis Gottschalk Prize of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the SHARP Prize for the best work on the history of authorship, reading and publishing. He has also published widely in the history of science and the history of the book. Educated in Britain at the University of Cambridge, Professor Johns has taught at the University of Kent at Canterbury, the University of California, San Diego, and the California Institute of Technology. He has recently published a new book, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
Publications include:
- The Nature of the book: print and knowledge in the making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
- Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009)
- "Coffeehouses and print shops." The Cambridge History of Science, III: Early Modern Science (ed. L. Daston and K. Park. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006), 320-40.
- Intellectual property and the nature of science. Cultural Studies 20 (2006), 145-64.
- "Reading and Experiment in the Early Royal Society." K. Sharpe and S. Zwicker (eds.), Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 244-71.
- "Print and Public Science." The Cambridge History of Science, IV: Science in the Eighteenth Century(ed. R. Porter. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003), 536-60.
- "Science and the Book." The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain (7 vols. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. General Editors: D.F. McKenzie, D.J. McKitterick, I.R. Willison), vol. IV (2003), 274-303.
- "The Ambivalence of Authorship in early Modern Natural Philosophy," in M. Biagioli and P. Galison (eds.), Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science ( New York : Routledge, 2003), 67-90.
- "How to acknowledge a revolution." American Historical Review 107 (2002), 106-25 (part of an invited "Forum" with Elizabeth Eisenstein and Anthony Grafton).
- "The Past, Present, and Future of the Scientific Book" and "The Physiology of Reading" in N. Jardine and M. Frasca-Spada (eds.), Books and the Sciences in History ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000), 408-26, 291-314.
- "Miscellaneous Methods: Authors, Societies and Journals in Early Modern England," British Journal for the History of Science 33 (2000), 159-86.
- "Identity, Practice, and Trust in Early Modern Natural Philosophy," Historical Journal 42 (1999), 1125-45.
- "Science and the Book in Modern Cultural Historiography," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998), 167-94.
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KARIN KNORR CETINA
Professor of Anthropology and Sociology
Ph.D., University of Vienna
Habilitation, University of Bielefeld
E-Mail: knorr@uchicago.edu
Karin Knorr Cetina's research focuses on the social construction of scientific knowledge, especially its various forms of reasoning. Of particular recent interest are the institutions of high-energy physics and financial markets.
Publications include:
- Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge. Havard University of Press, 1999.
- The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. Oxford University Press, 1981.
- "From Pipes to Scopes," Journal Distinktion, 7 2003.
- "Inhabiting Technology: Features of a Global Life-form," Current Sociology 50 (3), 2002: 389-405.
- "Sociality with Objects: Social Relations in Post-social Knowledge Societies," Theory, Culture and Society, 14 (4), 1997: 1-30.
- "Epistemics in Society: On the Nesting of Knowledge Structures in Social Structures," Sociologie et Societes, 30 (1), 1998: 37-50.
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JOSEPH MASCO
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1999
Office: Haskell, mez. 134
Phone: 773-834-7807
Email
Areas of special interest: Science studies, the anthropology of security, critical theory, political ecology, race and nation, mass media and expressive culture; US, North America.
Joseph Masco investigates the politics of everyday life in the nuclear age and in post-Cold War America. His first book The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico (Princeton University Press, 2006), co-winner of the 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize, explores how the end of the Cold War challenged concepts of security and risk for the diverse communities working in and neighboring Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. His current research focuses on the intersection of national security technologies, emotional management campaigns, and state formation, with a specific focus on how “terror” has been nationalized in U.S. political culture.
Publications Include:
- The Nuclear Borderlands: The Manhattan Project in Post-Cold War New Mexico. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Co-Winner, 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize.
- "5:29:45 AM." In I. Karp and C. Kratz, eds., Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations. Durham : Duke University Press, 2006.
- "Fantastic City : Engineering Ruins in Cold War America" Cabinet . 20 (2006): 85-88.
- "'Active Measuresâ' or How a KGB Spymaster Made Good in Post-9/11 America," Radical History Review. 93 (2005): 285-300.
- The Billboard Campaign: The Los Alamos Study Group and the Nuclear Public Sphere. Public Culture. 17 (2005): 487-97.
- "A Notebook on Desert Modernism: From the Nevada Test Site to Liberace's 200-Pound Suit" in S. Harding and D. Rosenberg (eds.) Histories of the Future . Durham : Duke University Press, 2005.
- "Mutant Ecologies: Radioactive Life in Post-Cold War New Mexico," Cultural Anthropology . 19 (2004): 517-550.
- "Nuclear Technoaesthetics: Sensory Politics from Trinity to the Virtual Bomb in Los Alamos," American Ethnologist . 31(2004): 1-25.
- "Lie Detectors: On Secrets and Hypersecurity in Los Alamos," Public Culture, 14 (2002): 441-467.
- "States of Insecurity: Plutonium and Post-Cold War Anxiety in New Mexico, 1992-96," in J. Weldes, M. Laffey, H. Gusterson, & R. Duval (eds.), Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger.Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
- "Competitive Displays: Negotiating Genealogical Rights to the Potlatch at the American Museum of Natural History," American Anthropologist 98 (1996): 837-852.
- "'It Is a Strict Law That Bids Us Dance': Cosmologies, Colonialism, Death and Ritual Authority in the Kwakwaka'wakw Potlatch, 1849-1922." Comparative Studies in Society and History 37(1995): 41-75.
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KARL MATLIN
Professor, Department of Surgery; Committee on Cell Physiology; Senior Fellow, Institute of Genomics and Systems Biology
BS, 1973, Indiana University, Biological Sciences
PhD, 1979, Rockefeller University, Cell Biology
University of Chicago
5841 S. Maryland Ave.,
SBRI J557 (MC 5032)
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: (773) 834-2242
Fax: (773) 834-4546
Email: kmatlin@surgery.bsd.uchicago.edu
Research in the Matlin Laboratory is focused on understanding the biogenesis of apical-basal polarity in epithelial cells. Epithelial polarity is critical for the normal functioning of epithelial organs, such as the kidney and the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, the loss of epithelial polarity is an important contributor to the pathogenesis of disease following epithelial injury and carcinogenesis.
A primary current project is focused on deciphering how interaction of epithelial cells with the underlying extracellular matrix helps to orient the apical-basal axis in cells. In particular, we are examining how two forms of laminin, a major protein of the basal lamina, affect cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and, ultimately polarization. One of these is laminin 332 (formerly known as laminin 5), a truncated form implicated in epithelial regeneration after injury. The other is laminin 511 (formerly known as laminin 10), a network-forming laminin whose assembly is believed to be required for polarization. Experiments in this area are conducted using Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, the leading mammalian model for the study of polarization mechanisms.
A variety of other projects are also underway or are being planned. These include examination of laminin involvement in regeneration of the renal tubular epithelium after acute or chronic kidney injury using mouse models, investigation of the roles of laminins in cancer metastasis, and determination of the effects of laminin 332 on network assembly of laminin 511 using atomic force microscopy. In addition, our laboratory is very interested in developing computational approaches to model epithelial polarization on a systems level.
Aside from work in the laboratory, we are also conducting research on the history and philosophy of cell biology, particulary in the modern period after 1970, and the relationship of the discipline of cell biology to the parallel discipline of molecular biology.
Publications include:
- Mak, G., Kavanaugh, G.M., Stickley, S.M.., Zuk, A., Koch, M., Buschmann, M.E., Goss, K.H., and Matlin, K.S. Regulated synthesis and functions of laminin 5 in polarized Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells. Molecular Biology of the Cell 2006; 17:3664-3677.
- Yu, W., Datta, A., Leroy, P., O’Brien, L., Jou, T-S., Mak, G., Matlin, K.S., Mostov, K.E., and Zegers, M.M.P. Beta1-integrin orients epithelial polarity via Rac1 and laminin assembly. 2005; Mol. Biol. Cell 16:433-445.
- Prahalad, P., Calvo, I., Waechter, H. Matthews, J.B., Zuk, A., and Matlin, K.S. Regulation of MDCK cell-substratum adhesion by rhoA and myosin light chain kinase after ATP-depletion. Am. J. Physiol. Cell Physiol. 2004; 286: C693-C707.
- Zuk, A and Matlin, K.S. Induction of a laminin isoform and the alpha(3)beta(1) integrin in renal ischemic injury and repair in vivo. Am. J. Physiol. 2002;283:F971-984.
- Matlin, K.S. The strange case of the signal recognition particle. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 2002;3:538-42.
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SALIKOKO MUFWENE
Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor; Department of Linguistics and the College; The Committee on Evolutionary Biology
Ph.D. University of Chicago. 1979
E-mail: s-mufwene@uchicago.edu
My research of the past 15 years or so has been on language evolution, patterned on biological evolution and very much inspired by macro-ecology. Having explored an ecological approach to language change, speciation, and vitality in documented human history, I now investigate the phylogenetic emergence of language(s) in mankind, articulating what counts as ecology during this protracted process, starting with the evolving hominine anatomy and mind. Assuming that the latter has co-opted the latter for increasingly more explicit, nuanced, and complex communication within specific population structures, I ponder on how linguistic diversity emerged and has evolved. I test uniformitarianism, examining what in modern human socialization and communicative activities can inform research on language phylogeny. I have worked on colonization (in the sense of relocation to a new habitat and domestication of and adaptation to the latter), globalization, and the impacts of these phenomena on language change and vitality, especially on how their varying effects (geographically and socially) may be correlated with different kinds of inter-group contacts. As a matter of fact, how do we conceptualize agency in phenomena that apply to populations?
My relevant publications include:
- The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2001
- Créoles, écologie sociale, évolution linguistique: cours donnés au Collège de France durant l’automne 2003. Paris: L’Harmattan. 2005.
- Language evolution: Contact, competition, and change. London: Continuum Press. 2008.
- Globalization and language vitality in: Perspectives from Africa, co-edited with Cécile B. Vigouroux. London: Continuum Press. 2008.
- Iberian imperialism and language evolution in Latin America (ed.), to appear. University of Chicago Press.
- Colonisation, globalisation, vitalité du français, co-edited with Cécile B. Vigouroux. Paris: Odile Jacob. in press (Fall 2013).
- An ecological account of language evolution! Way to go! Commentary on Luc Steels’ “Modeling the cultural evolution of language.” Physics of Life Reviews 8.367-368. (2011)
- The emergence of complexity in language: An evolutionary perspective. In Complexity perspectives on language, communication, and society, ed. by Ángels Massip-Bonet & Albert Bastardas-Boada, 197-218. Springer Verlag. (2012)
- Language as technology: Some questions that evolutionary linguistics should address. In In search of Universal Grammar: From Norse to Zoque, ed. By Terje Lohndal, 327-358. John Benjamins. (2013)
- The origins and the evolution of language (Ch. 1). In The Oxford handbook of the history of linguistics, ed. by Keith Allan, 13-52. Oxford University Press. (March 2013).
- Language ecology, language evolution, and the actuation question. In Language contact and change: Grammatical structure encounters the fluidity of language, ed. by Tor Afarli & Brit Maelhum. John Benjamins. (in press, anticipated for 2013)
For more information on me, please visit my website at:
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene
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ROBERT J. RICHARDS
The Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor in the History of Science and Medicine
Director of the Fishbein Center
Professor of History, Philosophy, and Psychology.
Ph.D. University of Chicago. 1978.
The Fishbein Center
The University of Chicago
1126 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8348 -- office
(773) 743-8949 -- fax
E-Mail: r-richards@uchicago.edu
For further information about Robert J. Richards, go to: http://home.uchicago.edu/~rjr6/.
Professor Richards does research in the history and philosophy of psychology and biology. This includes particular interest in evolutionary biopsychology, ethology, and sociobiology, as well as theories of perception from the ancient period to the present day. Concerning philosophic and metahistoric problems, he has argued for a revaluation of evolutionary ethics and have developed a natural selection model for historiographic analysis. His recent research has been on the impact of the German Romantic movement on philosophy and science (particularly biology). He have just finished a work on the development of evolutionary theory in Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Publications include:
- Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior. University of Chicago Press, 1987 (Winner of the Pfizer Prize of the History of Science Society).
- The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin's Theory. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
- The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. University of Chicago Press, 2002.
- The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
- Cambridge Companion to the Origin of Species, 2009, edited with Michael Ruse.
- "Darwinian Enchantment," in Secular Enchantment, ed. George Levine (Princeton University Press, 2010).
- Darwin's Place in the History of Biology - a Re-evaluation," Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 106, Supplement 1 (June, 2009) 10056-10060.
- "The Tragic Sense of Ernst Haeckel: His Scientific and Artistic Struggles," (2009) in catalogue of the exhibition "Darwin - Art and the Search for Origins" (2009), Shirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany.
- "Myth: That Darwin and Haeckel were Complicit in Nazi Biology," in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
- "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Not Proven", Biology and Philosophy, 24 (2009): 147-154.
- "Nature is the Poetry of Mind, or How Schelling Solved Goethe's Kantian Problems," in Michael Friedman and Alfred Nordman (eds.), The Kantian Legacy in Nineteenth-Century Science ( Cambridge : MIT Press, 2006): 27-50.
- "Ernst Haeckel and the Struggles over Evolution and Religion," Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology 10 (2005): 89-116
- "The Aesthetic and Morphological Foundations of Ernst Haeckel's Evolutionary Project," in Mary Kemperink and Patrick Dassen (eds.), The Many Faces of Evolution in Europe, 1860-1914 ( Amsterdam : Peeters, 2005), pp. 1-16 + plates.
- "The Narrative Structure of Moral Judgments in History: Evolution and Nazi Biology," (2005 Ryerson Lecture) The University of Chicago Record 39 (May 26, 2005).
- "Darwin's Metaphysics of Mind," in Darwin and Philosophy , ed. Vittorio Hoesle and Christian Illies (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005), pp. 166-80.
- "The Erotic Authority of Nature: Nature, Science, and the Female during Goethe's Italian Journey," in The Moral Authority of Nature, ed. Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal (University of Chicago Press, 2003).
- "Biology," in From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences: Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century Science, ed. David Cahan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 16-48.
- "Evolution of Mind, Behavior, and Emotions," in Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 92-115.
- "Linguistic Creation of Man: Charles Darwin, August Schleicher, Ernst Haeckel, and the Missing Link in 19th-Century Evolutionary Theory," in Experimenting in Tongues: Studies in Science and Language, ed. Matthias Doerres (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001)
- "Psychology as a Humanism," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 37 (2001): 61-66.
- "Kant and Blumenbach on the Bildungstrieb: A Historical Misunderstanding," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences 31 (2000): 11-32.
- "Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano, or Johann Christian Reil and the Foundations of Romantic Psychiatry," Critical Inquiry 24, no. 3 (spring, 1998): 700-736.
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STEPHEN M. STIGLER
Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Statistics
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley. 1967.
Department of Statistics
The University of Chicago
5734 University Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8333 -- department
(773) 702-9810 -- fax
(773) 702-8328 -- office
E-Mail: stigler@galton.uchicago.edu
Stephen M. Stigler is interested in the history of statistics and probability, from the appearance of early concepts in gambling, astronomy, and geodesy, to the development of statistical methods in social science and biology, including the ways those methods have helped to shape core ideas in these sciences. Some individual scientists who have been particularly influential in this history are Laplace, Gauss, Quetelet, Galton, Edgeworth, Karl and Egon Pearson, Ronald Fisher, Neyman, and Wald. A focus of current research is 20th century mathematical statistics. Another area of investigation is quantitative studies of the flow of information in science, including the use of citation-based measures to model the flow of intellectual influence in science.
Publications include:
- The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986.
- Statistics on the Table: The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.
For a full list of over 140 publications, go to Stephen M. Stigler's home page: http://www.stat.uchicago.edu/~stigler/
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E. GLEN WEYL
Assistant Professor of Economics
Ph.D. Princeton University. 2008.
Department of Economics
1126 E. 59th Street
205B
Chicago, IL 60637 USA
Phone: 702-4862
E-mail: weyl@uchicago.edu
E. Glen Weyl's primary research interests are in pure and applied price theory, with a focus on industrial and public economics. This work addresses a number of problems in the design of markets and public policy, including efficient alternatives to eminent domain for assembling land, the appropriate mix of patents and prizes for rewarding innovation, techniques for evaluating the competitive effects of mergers and the design of financial regulation. Glen has a strong secondary interest in the intersection between economics and other fields, particularly biology, philosophy and history. For example, his first book, Jewish Economies, which he edited jointly with Stephanie Lo, collects previously-unpublished work by Nobel Laureate Simon Kuznets on the economic history of the Jews and his introduction connects this work to Kuznets's better-known mainstream thought. Glen's current projects explore the intersection of political theory and economics (the design of systems for collective decision making), the intersection of computer science and economics (the impact of information technology on the appropriate organization of economic policy) and the intersection of ethics and economics (the trade-off between the internal equality of societies and their openness to outsiders).
Publications include:
Kuznets, S. 2012. Jewish Economies: Migration and Development in America and Beyond. Lo, S. and E. G. Weyl eds. Transaction: New Brunswick, NJ.
Weyl, E. G. 2009. "Whose Rights? A Critique of Individual Agency as the Basis of Rights,"Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 8(2): 139-171.
Weyl, E. G., Frederickson, M. E., Yu, D. W. and N. E. Pierce. 2010 "Economic Contract Theory Tests Models of Mutualism," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(36): 15712-15716.
Weyl, E. G. 2010. "A Price Theory of Multi-Sided Platforms," American Economic Review, 100(4): 1642-1672.
Weyl, E. G. and J. Tirole. 2012. "Market Power Screens Willingness-to-Pay," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(4).
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ALISON WINTER
Professor of History
The University of Chicago
834-7571--office
SS 206
Email: awinter@midway.uchicago.edu
Her interests include the history of sciences of mind (and more broadly the human sciences) in Britain and America since the eighteenth century, the history of modern medicine, the historical construction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the sciences and medicine, and historical issues of gender. Her first book developed a social and cultural history of mesmerism in Victorian Britain. Her current research focuses on the scientific study and medical extraction of memory in America and Britain.
Publications include
- Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
- "A calculus of suffering: Ada Lovelace and the corporeal constraints on women's knowledge in early Victorian England," in Christopher Lawrence and Stephen Shapin, eds., Science Incarnate: The physical presentation of intellectual selves (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
- "The construction of orthodoxies and heterodoxies in the early Victorian life sciences," B. Lightman (ed.), Victorian Science in Context, University of Chicago Press 1997.
- (With Anne Joseph), "Making the match: The hunt for human traces, the scientific expert and the public imagination," in Francis Spufford and Jenny Uglow, eds., Cultural Babbage: Technology, time and invention, Faber and Faber (1996), pp. 193-214.
- "Compasses All Awry: The iron ship and the ambiguities of cultural authority in Victorian England," Victorian Studies (Autumn 1994), 69-98.
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Associate Committee Members
CORINNE BLOCH
Post-Doctoral Scholar and Lecturer
Ph.D. University of Tel Aviv. 2013 (submitted 2012).
Ph.D. Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2013 (submitted 2012).
The University of Chicago
1126 E. 59Th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Office phone: 773-702-8261
E-mail: cbloch@uchicago.edu
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/corinnelbloch/Home
Corinne Bloch is a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Chicago (2011-2013), where she taught courses in the philosophy of science, philosophy of biology and philosophy of cognitive science. Before coming to Chicago, she spent 4 years as a visiting scholar at the History and Philosophy of science Department at the University of Pittsburgh, while writing her dissertation. Her philosophy dissertation, conducted at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, was titled “Concepts and Definitions in Science: Epistemic Roles and Referential Stability.” In addition, she has recently submitted her dissertation in animal science (specializing in neuro-endocrinology) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her biology research focused on hypothalamo-pituitary and intra-pituitary communication.
Corinne’s main research interests are theories of concepts, both from a cognitive science perspective and from a normative, epistemological one. In psychology, she interested in questions pertaining to the interface between the perceptual and conceptual level. How do people categorize? Are low-level concepts formed in the same manner as abstract concepts? Are concepts represented perceptually? What is the relation between our grasp of similarity at the perceptual level and our grasp of it at the conceptual level? From the epistemological perspective, she is interested in the way in which concepts -- especially scientific concepts -- facilitate the integration of existing knowledge, as well as the production of new knowledge (both empirical and theoretical). She is especially interested in the implications of these questions to issues of rationality in conceptual change in science. To answer these questions, she analyzes case studies of scientific concepts, throughout periods of theoretical and conceptual changes, while utilizing insight from cognitive science.
Publications include:
“Definitions and Reference Determination: The Case of the Synapse” forthcoming in Burian, R. and A. Gotthelf (Eds.), Concepts, Induction, and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge.
“Early Concepts in Investigative Practice: The Case of the Virus” in Steinle, F. and U. Feest, (Eds.) Scientific Concepts and Investigative Practice, Berlin studies in Knowledge Research, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2012.
"Scientific Kinds Without Essences," in Bird, A., Ellis, B. and H. Sankey (eds.), Properties, powers and structures: Issues in the metaphysics of realism, Routledge Studies in Metaphysics, December 2011.
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JACQUELINE FEKE
Harper-Schmidt Fellow and Collegiate Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Toronto. 2009.
Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts
The University of Chicago
5845 S. Ellis Ave., Gates-Blake 408
Chicago, IL 60637, U.S.A.
Office phone: 773-702-5875
E-mail: jfeke@uchicago.edu
Jacqueline Feke received her Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science and technology from the University of Toronto. She spent 2009-2012 as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, and she will spend the summer of 2013 as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her research examines the philosophical ideas and rhetorical practices of Greco-Roman mathematicians, including Claudius Ptolemy, Hero of Alexandria, and Theon of Alexandria. She currently is working on her book manuscript, “Ethical Mathematics: Ptolemy on the Relationships between Physics, Mathematics, and Theology.” The book takes Ptolemy’s ethical program as foundational to his other philosophical and mathematical pursuits. It presents an intellectual history of Ptolemy’s entire philosophical system—his metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics—as well as an analysis of how Ptolemy applies his philosophical ideas in his practice of the mathematical and physical sciences.
Publications include:
“Théon d’Alexandrie.” Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. 6. Ed. Richard Goulet. Forthcoming.
“Mathematizing the Soul: The Development of Ptolemy’s Psychological Theory from On the Kritêrion and Hêgemonikon to the Harmonics.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43.4 (Dec. 2012): 585-594.
“Ptolemy’s Defense of Theoretical Philosophy.” Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 45.1 (Jan. 2012): 61-90.
“Ptolémée d’Alexandrie (Claude).” Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, vol. 5, 2nd part: de Plotina à Rutilius Rufus. Ed. Richard Goulet. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2012. 1718-33.
“What Can We Know of What the Romans Knew? Comments on Daryn Lehoux’s What Did the Romans Know? An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking.” Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 6.2 (2012): 23-32.
(with Alexander Jones). “Ptolemy.” Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, vol. 1. Ed. Lloyd Gerson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 197-209.
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Emeritus Faculty
LEO P. KADANOFF
Emeritus
Ph.D., Harvard, 1960.
John D. MacArthur Distinguished Srvc. Prof. Emeritus, Depts. Physics and Math., James Franck Inst., Enrico Fermi Inst., and the College
Theoretical physics, hydrodynamics, statistical physics.
E-Mail: l-kadanoff@uchicago.edu
We work on non-linear systems using the techniques of statistical physics. More specifically, we are studying how turbulent, chaotic, and stochastic behavior arises in dynamical systems, particularly hydrodynamical and biological systems. For example, we have been extensively concerned with the development of simplified models for turbulence, with the nature of mathematical infinities in the flow of fluids and of bacteria, and with models of granular materials. We use both analytical and simulational methods and try to use experimental data whenever possible. Our basic goal is to understand the nature of the complex motion that can arise in even very simple systems. This work has applications to mathematics, astronomy, and chemical engineering.
I also do research and writing about the public presentation of science, particularly in the context of science museums.
- Built upon Sand. Rev. Mod. Phys., Jan. 1999.
- Simple Lessons from Complexity. L. Kadanoff and N. Goldenfeld. Science, April 1999.
- From Order to Chaos II, Essays: Critical Chaotic and Otherwise. World Scientific Series on Nonlinear Science, Series A, Vol. 32, 1999..
- Statistical Physics: Statics, Dynamics and Renormalization. L.P. Kadanoff. World Scientific, 2000.
- Turbulent Heat Flow: Structures and Scaling. L.P. Kadanoff. Physics Today, pp. 34-39, Aug. 2001.
- Models, Morals, and Metaphors. L.P. Kadanoff. Reference Frames, Physics Today, pp. 10-11, Feb. 2002.
- Book Review: Wolfram on Celluar Automata. L.P. Kadanoff. Physics Today, 55-56, July 2002. Review of the Book: A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram
- Numerical and Theoretical Studies of Noise Effects in the Kauffman Model, Xiaohui Qu, Maximino Aldana, Leo P. Kadanoff. Journal of Statistical Physics, 109 516, Dec. 2002.
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GEORGE STOCKING
Emeritus
Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Anthropology.
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania. 1960.
Department of Anthropology
The University of Chicago
Social Sciences, 1126. E. 59TH
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-7701 -- department
(773) 702-4503 -- fax
(773) 702-7702 -- office
E-Mail: g-stocking@uchicago.edu
Research interests: Currently working on the history of anthropology in the United States from 1945 to 1970.
Publications include:
- Race, Culture, and Evolution. New York: Free Press. 1968
- Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press. 1987
- The Ethnographer's Magic. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1992.
- After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888-1951. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1992.
- Deliminating Anthropology: Occasional Inquiries and Reflections. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
As well as 10 edited volumes and numerous articles and reviews.
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WILLIAM C. WIMSATT
Emeritus
Professor of Philosophy, and in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh. 1971.
Department of Philosophy
The University of Chicago
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8513 -- department
(773) 702-9861 -- fax
(773) 702-8598 -- office
E-Mail: wwim@midway.uchicago.edu
Professor Wimsatt works on methodological problems arising in the analysis of complex systems-especially in evolutionary biology, but also in various of the human and physical sciences. He has worked on problem solving strategies, model-building, on the structure of evolutionary genetics, functional organization and functional inference, levels of organization, chaos, the units of selection problem, and the role of development in evolution, extensively on reductionistic research strategies and their biases, and concepts of emergence. He has also written on the history of classical genetics, on the nature of scientific visualization, and the problems of scientific change. Currently, he is working especially on the role of development in evolution and on problems in the construction of adequate theories of cultural evolution.
Publications include:
- Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings:
Piecewise Approximations to Reality
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.)
- "Reductionistic research strategies and their biases in the units of selection controversy," in T. Nickles, ed., Scientific Discovery-vol. II: Case Studies. Dordrecht: Reidel. 1980, pp. 213-259.
- "Robustness: reliability and overdetermination," in M. Brewer and B. Collins, eds., Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. 1981, pp. 124-163.
- "Developmental constraints: generative entrenchment, and the innate- acquired distinction," in P. W. Bechtel, ed., Integrating Scientific Disciplines. Dordrecht: Martinus-Nijhoff. 1986, pp. 85-208.
- "False Models as means to Truer Theories," in M. Nitecki, and A. Hoffman, eds., Neutral Models in Biology. London: Oxford University Press. 1987, pp. 23-55.
- Wimsatt, W. C., and J. C. Schank, "Two Constraints on the Evolution of Complex Adaptations and the Means for their Avoidance." Paper prepared for the 10th annual Spring Systematics Symposium of the Field Museum of Natural History, in M. Nitecki, ed., The Idea of Progress in Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1988, pp. 231-273.
- Griesemer, J. R., and W. C. Wimsatt, "Picturing Weismannism: A Case Study in Conceptual Evolution," in M. Ruse, ed., What Philosophy of Biology Is. (Festschrift for David Hull). Martinus-Nijhoff. 1989, pp. 75-137.
- "Taming the Dimensions-Visualizations in Science" in M. Forbes, L. Wessels, and A. Fine, eds, PSA-1990, volume 2; East Lansing: The Philosophy of Science Association. 1991, pp. 111-135.
- "Golden Generalities and Co-opted Anomalies: Haldane vs. Muller and the Drosophila group on the Theory and Practice of Linkage Mapping," in S. Sarkar, ed., The Founders of Evolutionary Genetics, Dordrecht: Martinus-Nijhoff. 1992, pp. 107-166.
- "The Ontology of Complex Systems: Levels, Perspectives and Causal Thickets", Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary volume #20, ed. Robert Ware and Mohan Matthen.1994, pp. 207-274.
- "Aggregativity: Reductive Heuristics for Finding Emergence," in L. Darden, ed., PSA-1996, v. 2 [Philosophy of Science, Supp Vol. #2, 1997]. 1997, pp. S372-S384.
- "Genes, Memes, and Cultural Inheritance," Biology and Philosophy. v. 14. 1999, 279-310.
- "Generativity, Entrenchment, Evolution, and Innateness," in V. Hardcastle, ed., Biology meets Psychology: philosophical essays MIT Press. 1999, 139-179.
- "Generative Entrenchment and the Developmental Systems Approach to Evolutionary Processes," in S. Oyama, R. Gray and P. Griffiths, eds, Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution, Cambridge: MIT Press, in press, 2000.
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