University of North Carolina Wilmington

Research Interests

My research focus is on the historical and conceptual development of evolutionary theory, particularly in the disciplines of paleontology and paleobiology.  My dissertation (was published by Routledge in 2007) was a study of the relationship between theories of language and cognition and mathematical natural philosophy in 17^th century France and Britain.  After completing this project, however, I have shifted my scholarship to the history of the modern natural sciences. 

 

The central question I have examined concerns the role of paleontology in recent evolutionary theory.  There has been a gap in secondary literature in the history of science dealing with the evolutionary contributions of paleontologists, in part because paleontology did not attempt to make much contribution (aside from G.G. Simpson and a few others) prior to the 1960s.  Existing scholarship has commented that very little room was available for paleontology in the wake of the Modern Synthesis, and that paleontologists often willingly subordinated themselves to biologists and geneticists.  Why, then, was there such a resurgence of interest in evolutionary theory among paleontologists during the 1970s and 80s?  Understanding the transformation of paleontology (and emergence of ‘paleobiology’) is important not only for clarifying the historical record of the history of evolutionary theory, but also because it sheds light on the way disciplines respond to new directions in times of crisis, how scientists achieve self-conscious disciplinary re-evaluation and reconstruction, and the role of interdisciplinary ‘trading’ of ideas and methods (e.g. between population biology and paleontology).  Recent paleontology has also contributed quite significantly to macroevolutionary theory, and my research also helps to identify the emergence of this important aspect of modern evolutionary thought.

The book I am writing examines the ‘renaissance’ in evolutionary paleobiology which took place between 1970 and the mid-1980s, and brought paleontology to the ‘high table’ of evolutionary biology.  During this time, a small group of young radicals in the field, including S.J. Gould, David Raup, Thomas Schopf, and Steven Stanley, self-consciously worked to promote a theoretical and methodological transformation of their discipline from the traditional, ideographic (descriptive) mode to a ‘nomothetic,’ or law-producing science.  My conceptual focus highlights the importance of macroevolutionary modeling and theory (e.g. species selection), statistical analysis of the fossil record, and extinction dynamics in paleontology, and also the significance of new and appropriated methodologies (stochastic simulation, population dynamics) and technologies (mainframe computers) in this history.  I also examine the institutional context which supported this research, including university and museum departments (hiring practices and pedagogy), organs for dissemination (journal publication policies and patterns), professional organizational politics (Paleontological Society business), and informal social networking.