Systematics at a Crossroads: Biological and Philosophical Arguments

The Field Museum's 25th Annual Spring Symposium

This symposium will bring together prominent philosophers of biology and practicing systematics to discuss issues including species concepts, classification, the testing of historical hypotheses, and competing phylogenetic methods. Participation of leading proponents of contradictory points of view promises an interesting symposium with lively discussion.

Systematics is the field of biology that seeks to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships among species and classify those accordingly. Systematists have traditionally sought a philosophical foundation for their sometimes controversial methods.

Speakers:

Robert D. Martin (Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, The Field Museum): Welcome

Maureen Kearney (The Field Museum): "The influence of philosophy in shaping systematics: a brief overview"

David Hull (Northwestern University): "The use and abuse of philosophy: Sir Karl Popper"

Olivier Rieppel (The Field Museum): "Willi Hennig's logical reconstruction of history"

Joseph Felsenstein (Univ. of Washington): "Criticisms of parsimony and criticisms of likelihood"

Daniel Faith (Australian Museum): "From species to supertrees: Popperian corroboration and some current controversies in systematics"

Kevin de Queiroz (Smithsonian Institution): "Philosophy and phylogenetic inference"

Elliott Sober (Univ. of Wisconsin): "Popper, likelihood, falsification, parsimony and Akaike"

Richard Boyd (Cornell Univ.): " The true falsificationist's standard advanced: induction, projectibility, kinds and approximation"

Michael Ghiselin (Calif. Academy of Sciences): "Individuals, natural kinds, and the justification of monism with respect to species concepts"

Marc Ereshefsky (Univ. of Calgary): " Replacing the Linnaean hierarchy: a pragmatic approach"

Carol Cleland (Univ. of Colo.): "Rethinking the justification of phylogenetic methods"

Kirk Fitzhugh (L.S. County Museum of Natural History): "Cladistic inference and the requirement of total evidence"

Alexander Rosenberg (Duke Univ.): "Will molecular biology solve the problems of systematics?"

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