Following Kripke and Putnam, the received view of chemical kinds has been a microstructuralist one. To be a microstructuralist about chemical kinds is to think that membership in said kinds is conferred by microstructural properties. Recently, the received microstructuralist view has been elaborated and defended, but it has also been attacked on the basis of complexities, both chemical and ontological. Here, I look at which complexities really challenge the microstructuralist view; at how the view itself might be made more complicated (...) in order to accommodate such challenges; and finally, at what this increasingly complicated picture implies for our standard assessment of chemical kindhood—primarily, for the widespread assumption that chemical kinds in general are more neat and tidy than those messy biological ones. _1_ The Received View _2_ A Taxonomy of Chemical Kinds _3_ Atomic Number _4_ H2O, H3O+, OH−, and More _5_ Complicating the Microstructuralist Picture _6_ Concrete and Other Mixtures _7_ Macromolecules, Especially Proteins _8_ Abandoning Sameness of Elemental Composition _9_ Not So Different after All. (shrink)

More than a decade of exacting scientific research involving paleontological fragments and ancient DNA has lately produced a series of pronouncements about a purportedly novel population of archaic hominins dubbed “the Denisova.” The science involved in these matters is both technically stunning and, socially, at times a bit reckless. Here I discuss the responsibilities which scientists incur when they make inductively risky pronouncements about the different relative contributions by Denisovans to genomes of members of apparent subpopulations of current humans. This (...) science is sensational: it is science which empirically speculates, to the public delight’s and entertainment, about scintillating topics such as when humans evolved, where we came from, and who else we were having sex with during our early hominin history. An initial characterization of sensational science emerges from my discussion of the case, as well as a diagnosis of an interactive phenomenon termed amplified inductive risk. (shrink)

There is a perennial philosophical dream of a certain natural order for the natural kinds. The name of this dream is ‘the hierarchy requirement’. According to this postulate, proper natural kinds form a taxonomy which is both unique and traditional. Here I demonstrate that complex scientific objects exist: objects which generate different systems of scientific classification, produce myriad legitimate alternatives amongst the nonetheless still natural kinds, and make the hierarchical dream impossible to realize, except at absurdly great cost. Philosophical hopes (...) for a certain order in nature cannot be fulfilled. Natural kinds crosscut one another, ubiquitously so, and this crosscutting spells the end of the hierarchical dream. (shrink)

Skipper and Millstein analyze natural selection and mechanism, concluding that natural selection is not a mechanism in the sense of the new mechanistic philosophy. Barros disagrees and provides his own account of natural selection as a mechanism. This discussion identifies a missing piece of Barros's account, attempts to fill in that piece, and reconsiders the revised account. Two principal objections are developed: one, the account does not characterize natural selection; two, the account is not mechanistic. Extensive and persistent variability causes (...) both of these difficulties, so further attempts to describe natural selection as a mechanism are also unlikely to succeed. (shrink)

The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate climate (...) change’s particular disconnect problem, as well as more general proposals for reforming science advising. (shrink)

Scientists have been arguing for more than 25 years about whether it is a good idea to collect voucher specimens from particularly vulnerable biological populations. Some think that, obviously, scientists should not be harvesting organisms from, for instance, critically endangered species. Others think that, obviously, it is the special job of scientists to collect precisely such information before any chance of retrieving it is forever lost. The character, extent, longevity, and span of the ongoing disagreement indicates that this is likely (...) to be a hard problem to solve. Nonetheless, the aim of this paper is to help field biologists figure out what do to when collecting a voucher specimen risks extinction. Here I present and assess varying practices of specimen collection for both extant and extinct species in order to compare and contrast cases where extinction risk both is and is not a problem. When it comes to taking vouchers from extant species at some risk of extinction, I determine that those advocating for conservative approaches to collection as well as those advocating for liberal information-gathering practices have good reasons to assess things in the way they each do. This means that there is unlikely to be a decisive, one-size-fits-all response to this problem. Still, progress can be made. We can acknowledge the risks of proceeding in either manner, as well as the uncertainty about how best to proceed. We can proceed as thoughtfully as possible, and be ready to articulate a rationale for whichever procedure is used in any particular case. (shrink)

The overarching argument of Currie’s Rock, Bone, and Ruin is that we should be optimistic rather than pessimistic about what the historical sciences can tell us, even about the deep past. To adopt either of these two positions is to take a stance on how the historical sciences tend to perform—on whether they tend to do well, or poorly, when it comes to informing us about the past.

Proponents of human reproductive cloning do not dispute that cloning may lead to violations of clones' right to self-determination, or that these violations could cause psychological harms. But they proceed with their endorsement of human reproductive cloning by dismissing these psychological harms, mainly in two ways. The first tactic is to point out that to commit the genetic fallacy is indeed a mistake; the second is to invoke Parfit's non-identity problem. The argument of this paper is that neither approach succeeds (...) in removing our moral responsibility to consider and to prevent psychological harms to cloned individuals. In fact, the same commitment to personal liberty that generates the right to reproduce by means of cloning also creates the need to limit that right appropriately. Discussion of human reproductive cloning ought to involve a careful and balanced consideration of both the relevant aspects of personal liberty – the parents' right to reproductive freedom and the cloned child's right to self-determination. (shrink)

There is an ongoing and robust tradition of science and technology studies scholars conducting ethnographic laboratory studies. These laboratory studies—like all ethnographies—are each conducted at a particular time, are situated in a particular place, and are about a particular culture. Presumably, this contextual specificity means that such ethnographies have limited applicability beyond the narrow slice of time, place, and culture that they each subject to examination. But we do not always or even often treat them that way. It is beyond (...) common for us to speak about what one or another laboratory study reveals about the laboratory, or “science” much more broadly. Given the contextual specificity of our ethnographic laboratory studies, what justifies this presumed generalizability? Initially, this manuscript surveys typical responses to this question, but then it pursues an unusual one: the potential replicability of ethnographic results. This potential is hereby explored, via an ethnographic replication attempt—one designed and conducted in order to test the generalizability of a particular laboratory study, that of Latour and Woolgar’s classic Laboratory Life. The results of the ethnographic replication attempt are reported, and a remarkable degree of replicability is established. (shrink)

It is often thought that non-junk or coding DNA is more significant than other cellular elements, including so-called junk DNA. This is for two main reasons: because coding DNA is often targeted by historical or current selection, it is considered functionally special and because its mode of action is uniquely specific amongst the other actual difference makers in the cell, it is considered causally special. Here, we challenge both these presumptions. With respect to function, we argue that there is previously (...) unappreciated reason to think that junk DNA is significant, since it can alter the cellular environment, and those alterations can influence how organism-level selection operates. With respect to causality, we argue that there is again reason to think that junk DNA is significant, since it too is remarkably causally specific. As a result, something is missing from the received view of significance in molecular biology—a view which emphasizes specificity and neglects something we term ‘reach’. With the special case of junk DNA in mind, we explore how to model and understand the causal specificity, reach, and corresponding efficacy of difference makers in biology. The account contains implications for how evolution shapes the genome, as well as advances our understanding of multi-level selection. (shrink)