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1In botany, garden and herbarium specimens have been used for purposes of systematic research since the mid-sixteenth century. The associated practices of collecting, exchanging and collating specimens were most influentially synthesized by Carl Linnaeus in the mid-eighteenth, although it should take roughly a century after Linnaeus’s death until they were formally canonized in international rules of nomenclature. The role of specimens and type-specimens in the history of natural history – a “met…Read more
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1Book reviews-the tangled field. Barbara McClintock's search for the patterns of genetic controlHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 24 (2): 331-332. 2002.
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48Disciplinary baptisms: A comparison of the naming stories of genetics, molecular biology, genomics and systems biologyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (1): 5-32. 2007.Understanding how scientific activities use naming stories to achieve disciplinary status is important not only for insight into the past, but for evaluating current claims that new disciplines are emerging. In order to gain a historical understanding of how new disciplines develop in relation to these baptismal narratives, we compare two recently formed disciplines, systems biology and genomics, with two earlier related life sciences, genetics and molecular biology. These four disciplines span …Read more
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5Reproducing DifferenceIn Susanne Lettow (ed.), Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences, State University of New York Press. pp. 217-235. 2014.
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7Nils Güttler, Das Kosmoskop. Karten und ihre Benutzer in der Pflanzengeographie des 19. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen: Wallstein 2014. 416 S., geb., Ill., € 65,90. ISBN 978‐3‐8353‐1429‐0 (review)Berichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 40 (1): 91-92. 2017.
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21Gene ConceptsIn 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.
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47Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicineHistory 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
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28Philosophy of Biology Beyond Evolution: Philosophie der Biologie. Eine Einführung Ulrich Krohs and Georg Toepfer, eds Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005 (review)Biological Theory 2 (1): 111-112. 2007.
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21Race and History: Comments from an Epistemological Point of ViewScience, 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
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27Of elephants and errors: naming and identity in Linnaean taxonomyHistory 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
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7Race and Genomics. Old Wine in New Bottles?: Documents from a Transdisciplinary DiscussionNTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 363-386. 2008.
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14Acolytes of NATURE: Defining natural SCIENCE in Germany, 1770-1850 - by Denise PhillipsCentaurus 56 (1): 65-67. 2014.
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36„In der Jungfernheide hinterm Pulvermagazin frequens“: Das Handexemplar des Florae Berolinensis Prodromus (1787) von Karl Ludwig WilldenowNTM 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
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14Disciplinary baptisms: a comparison of the naming stories of genetics, molecular biology, genomics, and systems biologyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29 (1): 5. 2007.
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20Naturgeschichte und wissenschaftliche RevolutionNTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 17 (3): 329-338. 2009.
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18Zeugung, Entwicklung, Evolution: Neue Perspektiven in der Geschichte der LebenswissenschaftenNTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 399-404. 2008.
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15Race and Genomics. Old Wine in New Bottles?NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 16 (3): 363-386. 2008.
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19The cell as nexus: connections between the history, philosophy and science of cell biologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (3): 169-171. 2010.
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63Early Mendelism and the subversion of taxonomy: epistemological obstacles as institutionsStudies 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
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11Rezension: Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth‐century Travellers in South Africa von Siegfried HuigenBerichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 35 (3): 257-258. 2012.
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15Rezension: “Die große Kette der Wesen.” Ordnungen in der Naturgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit von Petra Feuerstein‐HerzBerichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 31 (3): 285-286. 2008.
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256A translation of Carl Linnaeus's introduction to Genera plantarum (1737)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
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11The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy (review)British Journal for the History of Science 40 (4): 605-606. 2007.
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34Systems and How Linnaeus Looked at Them in RetrospectAnnals 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
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10Rezension: Darwin und Foucault. Genealogie und Geschichte im Zeitalter der Biologie von Philipp SarasinBerichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 33 (1): 110-111. 2010.
Staffan Müller-Wille
Universität Zu Lübeck
Cambridge University
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Universität Zu LübeckHonorary Professor
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University of ExeterDepartment of Sociology, Philosophy and AnthropologyAssociate Professor (Part-time)
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
History of Western Philosophy, Misc |