James Griesemer

University of California, Davis

​

Jablonka and Lamb:
Innovators of a Novel Logic of Research Questions about Inheritance Systems

I characterize Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb’s joint accomplishments in their fruitful collaboration to investigate inheritance systems, focusing on kinds of questions they ask about the multiplicity of systems and kinds of answers they offer as alternatives to received views of the modern evolutionary synthesis (MES). I characterize their work in terms of an “epistemology,” a novel logic of research questions. Because Jablonka and Lamb challenge rather than reinforce MES’s core tenets, they require a logic of research questions that actively innovates in what can count as appropriate questions and answers. I focus on questions and answers rather than specific theories, methods, or technologies as an important early stage in the development of innovative research programs. I characterize this stage as an “enlargement” of the possibility space of explanations, drawing on recent work by Stuart Kauffman. 

התכנסות לקפה וכיבוד בשעה 17:30, ליד חדר 496.

יו"ר: שאול קציר

הציבור מוזמן