University of California, Davis

UC Davis is home to the Griesemer/Millstein Philosophy of Biology Lab, which was founded by Jim Griesemer and earned its moniker when Roberta Millstein joined the UCD Philosophy Department in Fall 2006.

The Lab is a community of faculty, graduate students, and visitors interested in philosophy of biology and related subjects. We meet once a week during the regular school year to read and discuss our works-in-progress, share ideas for new projects, make presentations and provide feedback on them, read topics of common interest, and engage with visiting scholars. One of the main goals of the Lab is to support graduate students in the various stages of their careers; to that end, topics related to presenting at conferences, publishing in journals, etc., are frequently discussed.

The philosophy Ph.D. program offers a Designated Emphasis in Science & Technology Studies, where the faculty include historian of science Mario Biagioli and cultural anthropologist Joseph Dumit, author of Drugs for Life (2012 Duke University Press). Both Prof. Millstein and Prof. Griesemer are affiliated faculty with the STS program. And, as it happens, Prof. Griesemer's 1989 “boundary objects” paper with Leigh Star is the most cited paper in Social Studies of Science, a leading STS journal. As of November 2014, the paper has been cited 5,142 times overall.

• Millstein, Roberta L. (forthcoming), “How the Concept of 'Population' Resolves Concepts of 'Environment,'” Philosophy of Science.
• Millstein, Roberta L. (forthcoming), “Probability in Biology: The Case of Fitness” in A. Hájek and C. R. Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (commissioned)
• Millstein, Roberta L. (2013), “Natural Selection and Causal Productivity” in H. Chao, S. Chen, and R. L. Millstein (eds.), Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics, Springer, 147-163.
• Chao, Hsiang-Ke, Chen, Szu-Ting, and Millstein, Roberta L. (2013), “Towards the Methodological Turn in the Philosophy of Science” in H. Chao, S. Chen, and R. L. Millstein (eds.), Mechanism and Causality in Biology and Economics, Springer, 1-16.
• Millstein, Roberta L. (2013), “Environmental Ethics” in K. Kampourakis (ed.), [http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-007-6537-5/page/1 The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators in the series History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 1, Springer, 723-743. (commissioned)
• Millstein, Roberta L. (2013), “Exploring the Status of Population Genetics: The Role of Ecology,” Biological Theory: Integrating Development, Evolution and Cognition (special thematic issue on “The Meaning of ‘Theory’ in Biology”) 7: 346-357.

• James R. Griesemer // website 1, 2, 3, CV, PhilPapers
  • Specialties: Evolutionary biology, genetics, developmental biology, ecology, and systematics
  • Willing to work with new students? Yes
• Roberta L. Millstein // website 1, 2, 3, CV, PhilPapers
  • Specialties: History and philosophy of evolutionary biology and ecology, causation, chance, environmental ethics
  • Willing to work with new students? Yes

• M. A. Hunter
• Shawn A. Miller // website 1, 2, 3, CV
• Rick Morris

• Jun Otsuka // website, PhilPapers

• Bert Baumgaertner, 2013 (tenure-track position at University of Idaho) // website 1, 2, CV
• Sarah Roe, 2014 (tenure-track position at Southern Connecticut State University) // website, CV