Conference Presentations by Antonio Fadda
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Presentation at the international conference "The Science of Evolution and the Evolution of the S... more Presentation at the international conference "The Science of Evolution and the Evolution of the Sciences" - KU Leuven
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Poster presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society - June 29... more Poster presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society - June 29 -July 2, 2016. Vancouver, BC, Canada.
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Thesis Chapters by Antonio Fadda
This study provides an account of how a naturalistic orientation in epistemology known as evoluti... more This study provides an account of how a naturalistic orientation in epistemology known as evolutionary epistemology can benefit from integration with some more recent advancements in cultural evolutionary theory. In particular, this thesis explores the ways in which a Darwinian selective framework of culture provides new insights to rethink unsolved
epistemological disputes and problems such as the growth of scientific ideas, the notion of scientific progress, the ‘context distinction’, the theory ladenness of science and a demarcation criterion between science and other cultural realms. All these issues are approached from an evolutionary and selective standpoint that assumes that biological and
cultural selection are representative of a wider and more encompassing selective process.
Thus, the thesis also explores theoretical disputes concerning the analogies and disanalogies between cultural and biological selection.
Five early evolutionary analogies of knowledge accretion are explored in the first chapter setting the context of the debate for the epistemological issues that are connected in the other chapters to cultural evolution. Here, a populationist account of scientific ideas is presented as a viable model to study the conceptual and ‘ideational’ dynamics of change in science. In the last part of this work, my populationist and selective model is applied to study a specific scientific innovation: a molecular technique for taxonomic identification and classification known as DNA barcoding.
Finally, the last chapter explores the use of text analysis to investigate the network of concepts and ideas that relate to the ‘DNA barcoding ’concept’. Here, I evaluate the impact of this technique on the fields of taxonomy/systematics, particularly, for what concerns the so called ‘species problem’.
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Papers by Antonio Fadda
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Population Thinking in Epistemic Evolution: Bridging Cultural Evolution and the Philosophy of Science, 2020
Researchers in cultural evolutionary theory (CET) have recently proposed the foundation of a new ... more Researchers in cultural evolutionary theory (CET) have recently proposed the foundation of a new field of research in cultural evolution named 'epistemic evolution'. Drawing on evolutionary epistemology's early studies, this programme aims to study science as an evolutionary cultural process. The paper discusses the way CET's study of science can contribute to the philosophical debate and, vice versa, how the philosophy of science can benefit from the adoption of a cultural evolutionary perspective. Here, I argue that CET's main contribution to an evolutionary model of scientific growth comes from the application of 'population thinking' to science. Populationism offers a 'variation based' understanding of scientists' epistemic and socio-epistemic criteria that is able to better accommodate the variegated preferences that intervene in scientific epistemic decisions. A discussion of the so called theory choice context is offered as an example of the way a populationist approach can shed new light on the operation of scientists' epistemic choices.
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Conference Presentations by Antonio Fadda
Thesis Chapters by Antonio Fadda
epistemological disputes and problems such as the growth of scientific ideas, the notion of scientific progress, the ‘context distinction’, the theory ladenness of science and a demarcation criterion between science and other cultural realms. All these issues are approached from an evolutionary and selective standpoint that assumes that biological and
cultural selection are representative of a wider and more encompassing selective process.
Thus, the thesis also explores theoretical disputes concerning the analogies and disanalogies between cultural and biological selection.
Five early evolutionary analogies of knowledge accretion are explored in the first chapter setting the context of the debate for the epistemological issues that are connected in the other chapters to cultural evolution. Here, a populationist account of scientific ideas is presented as a viable model to study the conceptual and ‘ideational’ dynamics of change in science. In the last part of this work, my populationist and selective model is applied to study a specific scientific innovation: a molecular technique for taxonomic identification and classification known as DNA barcoding.
Finally, the last chapter explores the use of text analysis to investigate the network of concepts and ideas that relate to the ‘DNA barcoding ’concept’. Here, I evaluate the impact of this technique on the fields of taxonomy/systematics, particularly, for what concerns the so called ‘species problem’.
Papers by Antonio Fadda
epistemological disputes and problems such as the growth of scientific ideas, the notion of scientific progress, the ‘context distinction’, the theory ladenness of science and a demarcation criterion between science and other cultural realms. All these issues are approached from an evolutionary and selective standpoint that assumes that biological and
cultural selection are representative of a wider and more encompassing selective process.
Thus, the thesis also explores theoretical disputes concerning the analogies and disanalogies between cultural and biological selection.
Five early evolutionary analogies of knowledge accretion are explored in the first chapter setting the context of the debate for the epistemological issues that are connected in the other chapters to cultural evolution. Here, a populationist account of scientific ideas is presented as a viable model to study the conceptual and ‘ideational’ dynamics of change in science. In the last part of this work, my populationist and selective model is applied to study a specific scientific innovation: a molecular technique for taxonomic identification and classification known as DNA barcoding.
Finally, the last chapter explores the use of text analysis to investigate the network of concepts and ideas that relate to the ‘DNA barcoding ’concept’. Here, I evaluate the impact of this technique on the fields of taxonomy/systematics, particularly, for what concerns the so called ‘species problem’.