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I am a distinguished professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. I am the currently serving a 2-year term as past-president of the Philosophy of Science Association. I have always been fascinated by complexity. How does a complex organism (or superorganism!) evolve or develop from simple beginnings? Why do intricate and sometimes unique structures occur in nature – like the nictitating lens of the chicken eye, or the waggle dance of honeybees? Why do multi-drug therapies work better than single drugs for diseases like HIV/AIDS? Generally, my research focuses on epistemological and metaphysical issues in the philosophy of science. More specifically my interests have centered on scientific explanations of complex behavior, and how we might best represent multi-level, multi-component, dynamic complex systems. I have published articles on functional explanation, units of selection in evolutionary biology, sociobiology, biological complexity and self-organization, scientific laws, robustness and emergence. I have been informed by the sciences that study social insects, global climate, genetic regulation, psychiatric disorders, and protein structure. Currently I am exploring cognitive resources for modeling scientific integrative practices, pragmatic metaphysics, and how to understand scientific data in both its production and its use。
Recent and Upcoming Talks and News
"How evidence gets deformed" AAAS Symposium: Lobbying for Evidence. AAAS Annual Meeting, February 15, 2020, Seattle, WA
"Scientific perspectives: Epistemic benefits of Integration" APA Central Division meeting. Symposium Perspectives on Perspectives. January 29, 2020 Chicago, Ill
Conference: Rethinking Emergence, University of Lisbon, “Challenges for a bottom-up approach to the reality of emergent phenomena” October 2019
16th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Prague, Keynote Lecture “Integrating Perspectives: Learning from Model Divergence” August 2019