• Universität Zu Lübeck
    Honorary Professor
  • Cambridge University
    Department of History and Philosophy of Science
    Lecturer
  • University of Exeter
    Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology
    Associate Professor (Part-time)
Bielefeld University
Department of Philosophy
PhD
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology
  • Reproducing Difference
    In Susanne Lettow (ed.), Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences, State University of New York Press. pp. 217-235. 2014.
  •  13
    Gene Concepts
    with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
    In Sahorta Sarkar & Anya Plutynski (eds.), Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Blackwell. 2008.
    This chapter contains section titled: Introduction The Gene in Classical Genetics The Gene in Molecular Genetics The Gene in Evolution and Development Conclusion: Genes, Genomics, and Reduction Acknowledgement References Further Reading.
  •  5
    Letters to the Editor
    Isis 102 (2): 343-343. 2011.
  •  21
    Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine
    with Lucy van de Wiel, Mathias Grote, Peder Anker, Warwick Anderson, Ariane Dröscher, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Lynn K. Nyhart, Guido Giglioni, Maaike van der Lugt, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Christiane Groeben, Janet Browne, and Nick Hopwood
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (3): 1-39. 2021.
    We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theolog…Read more
  •  13
    Race and History: Comments from an Epistemological Point of View
    Science, Technology, and Human Values 39 (4): 597-606. 2014.
    The historiography of race is usually framed by two discontinuities: the invention of race by European naturalists and anthropologists, marked by Carl Linnaeus’s Systema naturae and the demise of racial typologies after World War II in favor of population-based studies of human diversity. This framing serves a similar function as the quotation marks that almost invariably surround the term. “Race” is placed outside of rational discourse as a residue of outdated essentialist and hierarchical thin…Read more
  •  20
    Of elephants and errors: naming and identity in Linnaean taxonomy
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 42 (4): 1-34. 2020.
    What is it to make an error in the identification of a named taxonomic group? In this article we argue that the conditions for being in error about the identity of taxonomic groups through their names have a history, and that the possibility of committing such errors is contingent on the regime of institutions and conventions governing taxonomy and nomenclature at any given point in time. More specifically, we claim that taxonomists today can be in error about the identity of taxonomic groups in…Read more
  •  2
    Race and Genomics. Old Wine in New Bottles?: Documents from a Transdisciplinary Discussion
    with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
    NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 363-386. 2008.
  •  31
    „In der Jungfernheide hinterm Pulvermagazin frequens“: Das Handexemplar des Florae Berolinensis Prodromus (1787) von Karl Ludwig Willdenow
    with Katrin Böhme
    NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 21 (1): 93-106. 2013.
    We provide a detailed description of an interleaved and heavily annotated copy of Florae Berolinensis Prodromus, a flora of Berlin published by the German apothecary and botanist Karl Ludwig Willdenow in 1787, which today is preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. We demonstrate that this is the copy that the author himself used and carried with him during his botanical excursions in and around Berlin to prepare a second edition of the work. By analyzing this docu…Read more
  •  14
    Disciplinary baptisms: a comparison of the naming stories of genetics, molecular biology, genomics, and systems biology
    with Alexander Powell, Maureen A. O. Malley, Jane Calvert, and John Dupré
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (1): 5. 2007.
  •  18
    Naturgeschichte und wissenschaftliche Revolution
    NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 17 (3): 329-338. 2009.
  •  14
    Zeugung, Entwicklung, Evolution: Neue Perspektiven in der Geschichte der Lebenswissenschaften
    NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 399-404. 2008.
  •  7
    Race and Genomics. Old Wine in New Bottles?
    with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
    NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 363-386. 2008.
  •  13
    The cell as nexus: connections between the history, philosophy and science of cell biology
    with Maureen A. O’Malley
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (3): 169-171. 2010.
  •  51
    Early Mendelism and the subversion of taxonomy: epistemological obstacles as institutions
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36 (3): 465-487. 2005.
    This paper presents and discusses a series of hybridization experiments carried out by Nils Herman Nilsson-Ehle between 1900 and 1907 at a plant breeding station in Svalöf, Sweden. Since the late 1880s, the Svalöf station had been renowned for its ‘scientific’ breeding methods, which basically consisted of an elaborate system of record-keeping through which the offspring of individual plants were traced over generations while being meticulously described. This record system corresponded to a cer…Read more
  •  249
    A translation of Carl Linnaeus's introduction to Genera plantarum (1737)
    with Karen Reeds
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (3): 563-572. 2007.
    This paper provides a translation of the introduction, titled ‘Account of the work’ Ratio operis, to the first edition of Genera plantarum, published in 1737 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The text derives its significance from the fact that it is the only published text in which Linnaeus engaged in an explicit discussion of his taxonomic method. Most importantly, it shows that Linnaeus was clearly aware that a classification of what he called ‘natural genera’ could not be achieved by a …Read more
  •  5
    The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy (review)
    British Journal for the History of Science 40 (4): 605-606. 2007.
  •  26
    Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in Retrospect
    Annals of Science 70 (3): 305-317. 2013.
    Summary A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distin…Read more
  •  5
  •  238
    Collection and collation: theory and practice of Linnaean botany
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (3): 541-562. 2007.
    Historians and philosophers of science have interpreted the taxonomic theory of Carl Linnaeus as an ‘essentialist’, ‘Aristotelian’, or even ‘scholastic’ one. This interpretation is flatly contradicted by what Linnaeus himself had to say about taxonomy in Systema naturae , Fundamenta botanica and Genera plantarum . This paper straightens out some of the more basic misinterpretations by showing that: Linnaeus’s species concept took account of reproductive relations among organisms and was therefor…Read more
  •  10
    The Dark Side of Evolution: Caprice, Deceit, Redundancy
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 31 (2). 2009.
    The prevalent reading of Darwin's achievements today is adaptationist. Darwin, so the usual story goes, succeeded in providing a naturalistic explanation of the fact that organisms are adapted to their environments, a fact that served and continues to serve, as a chief argument for creationism. This stands in a curious tension with Darwin's own fascination with phenomena whose adaptive value was problematic, like vicariance, ornaments, atavisms, and rudiments, as well as the various "contraption…Read more