History and philosophy of science; science and society; social epistemology.

My research focuses on the history, theoretical foundations, methodology, and socio-political dimensions of genetics and evolutionary biology. Current research projects concern, more specifically: 1) the distinction between “history” and “science,” and the respects in which evolutionary biology is as much like the former as it is like the latter; 2) changing views of contingency and necessity in the Darwinian Revolution; 3) the structure and value of narrative explanations; 4) relationships between biology and “the state,” from the Manhattan Project to the Human Genome Project; and 5) issues concerning the nature of scientific “consensus” and “authority.”

I am coauthor of The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life (Cambridge University Press). My essays have appeared in Philosophy of Science, Journal of Philosophy, Evolution, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of the History of Biology, Biology and Philosophy, Episteme, and elsewhere.

Since 1990, I’ve co-directed the annual MBL-ASU History of Biology Seminar.

Advisor: Combined Major in Philosophy and Economics