This is super cool.

Jeff Groh@jeffgroh.bsky.social · last wk.

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Excited to share that "Common Ancestry, Contemporary Phylogenetics, and Process Ontology" is posted at Systematic Biology. @maureenmkearney.bsky.social and I argue that GCD Griffiths' process view of systematics provides a powerful foundation for contemporary systematics. doi.org/10.1093/sysb....

Common Ancestry, Contemporary Phylogenetics, and Process Ontology

Abstract. Recent advances in systematics and evolutionary biology have revealed extraordinary complexity in phylogenetic diversification, challenged our tr

academic.oup.com

⏰ Encourage eligible UPSS mentees to submit their PSA abstract by August 1st! Great opportunity to get on PSA'26 program & get feedback on their project #philsci

PSA UPSS Initiative@psa-upss.bsky.social · 2w ago

UPSS mentees participating in PSA UPSS Mentoring Program who are current grad students or w/in 3 years of PhD are eligible to submit a paper to be considered for presentation in UPSS Session at the PSA Biennial mtg in San Diego Nov 19-22. Deadline August 1st, 2026 #HPS philsci.org/upss_biennia...

I did not pay DE Shaw & Co to advertise my #ICML talk but I'm grateful to them.

I’m looking forward to catching the tail end of Evolution26 in Cleveland this week. If anyone’s giving a talk post a response with time and title!

"A Conventional View" is now online at B&P. We describe how pragmatic conventions help retain the utility of scientific tools when they outrun their theoretical and conceptual justifications, by unpacking what it means to treat higher taxonomic ranks as 'mere conventions'. doi.org/10.1007/s105...

A conventional view - Biology & Philosophy

A widely held view in biology is that higher Linnaean categories or ranks (genera, families, etc.) ought to be regarded as ‘mere conventions’. That is typically understood to mean that their utility and application stem from (relatively) recent conventions that have been adopted for their usage in biological classification. There are no underlying theories or robust ontological concepts of these higher ranks, in contrast to taxonomic groupings like species or populations (disputed as those underlying concepts or theories may be). Absent these conventions, the application of higher ranks are in important ways arbitrary, reflecting their lack of theoretical and conceptual grounding. Indeed, some taxonomists have argued that this lack of grounding justifies adopting rank-free taxonomies. Michael Devitt (2023a) challenges this entrenched view, calling it an exaggerated skepticism. Instead, he takes the continued use of higher Linnaean ranks as evidence that they reflect “minimal category concepts,” which do genuine theoretical and explanatory work by marking out a relative level of taxonomic hierarchy. We disagree. Here, we unpack what it means to treat Linnaean categories as mere conventions, arguing they are better understood as informational proxies for phylogenetic hierarchies. Yet, Devitt is right to focus on this case, as it provides an exemplar of how scientists retain the utility of scientific practices that outlive their underlying initial theoretical and conceptual justification. We conclude by offering an alternative explanation for this in the context of a pragmatic account of science that treats Linnaean classification as a biological formalization.

doi.org

Had two papers accepted in the last week: 1) "Common Ancestry, Contemporary Phylogenetics, and Process Ontology" in Systematic Biology (co-authored with @maureenmkearney.bsky.social). 2) "A Conventional View" in Biology & Philosophy (co-authored with Katherine Berensen & Peyton Cooper).

A new AJOB commentary I wrote with some of my (awesome) undergrads is live. "Re-Entrenching Vulnerability and the Ethics of AI Psychotherapy Chatobts." Builds on the excellent Target Article in the same issue by @thebusyowl.bsky.social & Megan Delahanty. doi.org/10.1080/1526...

Re-Entrenching Vulnerability and the Ethics of AI Psychotherapy Chatbots

Published in The American Journal of Bioethics (Vol. 26, No. 2, 2026)

doi.org

Really excited to see this in print. It's a great article by @teejperk.bsky.social that nicely balances history and philosophy of science.

TJ Perkins@teejperk.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Was the overturning of the Mound Builders mythology in the late 19th century a "triumph for science?" I argue, no, it wasn't, and that this narrative framing should be abandoned in my latest in the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

If you know an undergrad that would like to spend the summer doing research in my philosophy of biology lab, encourage them to apply to the U’s SPUR program. Includes a $5,000 stipend and subsidized housing to work in my lab. Details and how to apply here: tinyurl.com/SPUR-PhilBio...

The Philosophy of Biology Lab: Entangled Lineages, Classification, and Individuality - Office of Undergraduate Research

tinyurl.com

The thematic issue I co-edited with @javiersuarez.bsky.social "Complicating the Concept of Lineage" is online. Includes papers by Javier & @phieveigl.bsky.social, @lucielaplane.bsky.social, François Papale, Kate MacCord and me. See reply for links to articles: doi.org/10.1007/s137...

Complicating the Concept of Lineage: A Topical Collection - Biological Theory

Biological Theory -

doi.org

Special issue on "The ecology and evolution of bacterial immune systems." @pradeu.bsky.social @philinbiomed.bsky.social and all the other philosophers interested in immunology, etc. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1934

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royalsocietypublishing.org

Very proud to be part of this group of co-authors. doi.org/10.1017/psa....

Looking forward to reading this. My undergrads brought up this topic in my lab this morning and I'm confident they'll be eager to read this as well.

Kalyani Twyman@kztwyman.bsky.social · last yr.

Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #ScientificRacism #Antiracism

Loving Porto #ISHPSSB2025. Looking forward to catching up with folks. If anyone wants to catch my talk it’s on Friday afternoon, in a session with (the always great) Joeri Witteveen. My talk is on rogue taxonomy, taxonomic vandalism and a surprising analog version of bad AI science. Should be fun!

Excited to share that "Scaffolding: Selected Contributions of James R. Griesemer to History, Philosophy, and Biology" is out. I introduce Jim's chapter on formalization. (My original title, "Undermining Dichotomies and the Friends You Make Along the Way." doi.org/10.1007/978-...

Introduction to “Formalization and the Meaning of ‘Theory’ in the Inexact Biological Sciences”

Jim Griesemer papers are typically rich, creative, and challenging. One of my favorite things about a Griesemer paper is that some of the best bits are doing double duty as framing. That is well on di...

doi.org

For the cog sci folks out there, a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B @royalsocietypublishing.org: ‘Selection shapes diverse animal minds’. Collection of papers focusing on diversity of evolved animal cognition, from nematodes to primates. royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1929

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royalsocietypublishing.org

Call for Papers - AAHPSSS Conference 2025 Submissions are now open! The 2025 AAHPSSS conference will be held in a hybrid format at the University of Queensland from Wednesday 3rd December to Friday 5th December. Further details can be found on our website: aahpsss.net.au/conference/2...

2025 Conference

Submissions are now open and will be due by mid-July. Abstracts can be submitted here. We are pleased to announce that the 2025 conference of the Australasian Association for the History, Ph…

aahpsss.net.au

Very happy to see my "Positively Misleading Errors" finally published (it's been a long road). It generalizes an error of statistical reasoning discovered by Joe Felsenstein in 1978. Really happy with how it turned out. Currently free to access and download, so go for it! doi.org/10.1007/s112...

Positively misleading errors - Synthese

Positively misleading errors are errors of statistical reasoning in which adding data to an analysis will systematically and reliably strengthen support for an erroneous hypothesis over a correct one....

doi.org

Excited to share the publication of my paper, "Biology's Einstein Moment" in Biological Theory. TL;DR: biology is complex and entangled and there's lot of very cool recent upshots of this. (Shout out to @javiersuarez.bsky.social). PS open access, so it's free to download. doi.org/10.1007/s137...

Biology’s Einstein Moment: Specifying Lineal Frames of Reference and Rejecting Absolute Biological History - Biological Theory

We are currently in the midst of what I call biology’s Einstein moment. This is the rejection of absolute biological history, the idea that there is an invariant, privileged biological history against...

doi.org

Interested in lineages? Read this paper by Kate MacCord on the germline. link.springer.com/article/10.1... Fun and provocative. A great combination of history and philosophy of biology. Part of a spetial issue on Lineage in Biological Theory. @javiersuarez.bsky.social @profmatthaber.bsky.social

Let’s Talk About Sex…Cell Lineages - Biological Theory

Sex is fundamental to many organisms. It is through sexual reproduction that humans, and many metazoans (multicellular eukaryotes in the animal kingdom), propagate our species. For more than 150 years...

link.springer.com

"Cancer clones revised". Out in Biological Theory: rdcu.be/d4SEk My first philosophy paper that includes a bioinformatic analysis (variance in gene expression from RNAseq data). Nothing fancy. But a first step. One I care about. #PhiLabo

I offer my students a menu of assignments they may select from. My current favorite is "Create a Course Playlist." Students include at least 8 songs and write liner notes describing how they correspond to topics or texts we covered in class. Here's an example of some liner notes.