The Cabinet of Philosophical Biology is the laboratory of James Griesemer, Professor of Philosophy and member of the Center for Population Biology and Population Biology Graduate Group. The Cabinet is located in 5310 Storer Hall.

News

Summer 2006

So much has happened this year in Philosophy, now that I'm Chair, that I'm a whole year out of date keeping up with the lab news. So, here's a brief summary in reverse chronological order:

Jim just gave a lecture in Vienna exploring the application of the Price equation to developmental biology in his Altenberg Seminar in Theoretical Biology.

Ayelet and Ran Shavit have a new baby boy, Rotem, 7.5 lbs.

Brendon Larson, who had been post-docing at Davis as an IGERT fellow, is off to the University of Waterloo to take a job as Assistant Professor of Environmental Science.

Grant Yamashita has done the walk for his PhD graduation ceremony and will be finishing up his dissertation this summer.

Roberta Millstein accepted a job as associate professor at UC Davis and will be joining us in Fall 2006.

Matt Haber has accepted a job as assistant professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Utah. He and Rachel will be leaving for Utah in July.

Andrew Hamilton has accepted a job as assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University and will be heading to Arizona in August.

Vivette Garcia Deister visited in the lab from UNAM during January-May this year, developing her dissertation project on evo-devo. We hope to have her back in Davis sometime soon.

Nate Smith and Mike Trestman had productive years in and out of philosophy of biology. They'll both be heading to FDIBS (the ISHPSSB off-year workshop in Indiana University in July).

Matt Haber has just been awarded a UC Faculty Fellowship in the Department of Philosophy for next year. That means he'll be finishing his dissertation this Spring. If you want to see Matt's name in lights, go to the awards page at the Division of Social Sciences, College of Letters and Science, UC Davis.

Brendon Larson (UCSB) and Ayelet Shavit (Hebrew University, Israel) will be joining the lab next year. Brendon is a post-doctoral fellow of the Biological Invasions IGERT and Ayelet is a Fulbright Fellow.

Matt Haber and Grant Yamashita were organizers of the very successful "off year" meeting of the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, "FDISH" (Future Directions Workshop), in San Francisco, September 2004, funded by an NSF grant they were PIs for.

The Griesemer lab has just moved into Gottlieb Grotto (aka 5310 Storer).

Lisa Gannett has moved to St. Mary's University, Halifax in the Fall to join their Philosophy Department. We will all miss her, but we all wish her the best and will be saving her seat in the lab and at the Delta of Venus.

The lab has finally submitted its critical notice of Cycles of Contingency to Biology and Philosophy and it has been accepted.

Lisa and Jim just finished the proofs on their pair of articles for Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Jean-Paul Gaudilliere's, Classical Genetic Research and its Legacy, forthcoming with Routledge.

Gannett, L. and J. Griesemer, "Classical Genetics and the Geography of Genes" (chapter 4).

Gannett, L. and J. Griesemer, "The ABO Blood Groups: Mapping the History and Geography of Genes in Homo Sapiens" (chapter 6).

Matt Haber has had a pair of papers accepted for publication lately:

"Coherence, Consistency, and Cohesion: Clade Selection in Okasha and Beyond," coauthored with Andrew Hamilton, has been accepted for presentation at PSA 2004 and publication in Philosophy of Science Proceedings.

"On Probability and Systematics: Possibility, Probability, and Phylogenetic Inference," has been accepted for publication in Systematic Biology.

Matt led a "pizza munch" on Phylocode at the California Academy of Sciences, History and Philosophy of Science Program headed by Michael Ghiselin. Grant will lead one in July on germ/soma and Weismannism.

Lisa, Matt and Grant all attended the recent Dibner Institute workshop on the history of molecular phylogenetics at Woods Hole.

Tibor Gánti, 2003, The Principles of Life, with a commentary by James Griesemer and Eörs Szathmáry, Oxford University Press, has just been published. Visit our book at Oxford University Press Visit our book at Amazon.com

James Griesemer visited the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg Vienna in June, 2003 and lectured there on chemical autonomy, stoichiometric freedom and cultural evolution.

Every current member of the Cabinet gave a talk at ISHPSSB July 2003 in Vienna, Austria.

Uta Eser, "The Politics of Biodiversity"
Lisa Gannett, "The Politics of Group Versus Individual Differences in Behavioral Genetics"
James Griesemer, "Chemical Autonomy and Stoichiometric Freedom"
Matt Haber, "Invasion Biology and its Critics"
Grant Yamashita, "The Evolution of Germ and Soma: An Evaluation of the Models"

The whole Cabinet in the Biergarten am ISHPSSB 2003, Wien

Current Members of the Cabinet, Left to Right in the Photo

Grant Yamashita, UC Davis (Graduate Student, Population Biology Graduate Group)
James Griesemer, UC Davis (Professor of Philosophy, Population Biology Graduate Group)
Lisa Gannett, Cal State Univ Chico (Assistant Professor of Philosophy; Post-doctoral student in the lab, 1999-2000)
Matt Haber, UC Davis (Graduate Student, Department of Philosophy)
Uta Eser, Fachhochschule Nürtingen (Post-doctoral student in the lab, 1999-2000)

Mailing Addresses

Uta Eser

FH Nürtingen
Koordinationsstelle Umwelt
Schelmenwasen 4-8
D-72622 Nürtingen
GERMANY
eser@fh-nuertingen.de

Lisa Gannett

Trinity 116
Department of Philosophy
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0730
lgannett@csuchico.edu

James Griesemer

Department of Philosophy
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8673
jrgriesemer@ucdavis.edu

Matt Haber

Department of Philosophy
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8673
mhhaber@ucdavis.edu

Grant Yamashita

Population Biology Graduate Group
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
gyamashita@ucdavis.edu