Robert A. Skipper, Jr.
Ph.D., 2000, University of Maryland, College Park

website
email: "robert DOT skipper AT uc DOT edu"

Department of Philosophy
University of Cincinnati
P.O. Box 210374
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0374

Areas of Specialization

Skipper works in the history and philosophy of biology and science more generally. Presently, he is engaged in two main research projects. One project is aimed at understanding controversy dynamics in the biological sciences. Skipper has explored controversy dynamics by way of the problem of credentialing scientific claims made about models. His principal case study is a persistent controversy central to the foundations of population genetics, i.e., the R. A. Fisher-Sewall Wright controversy, which concerns the most fundamental aspects of evolutionary theorizing, viz., how to model the relationship between the causes of cumulative evolution and heredity.

The second main project is aimed at understanding the historical and conceptual foundations of modeling stochastic evolutionary dynamics. In particular, Skipper is interested in the biological underpinnings of these models and the relative significance of random processes in evolution such as mutation, genetic drift, and genetic draft. Most recently, Skipper has explored these isues by looking at the stochastic dynamics of linked selection.

Skipper is also interested in traditional problems in the philosophy of science, especially the structure and interpretation of scientific theories and scientific explanation. He regularly teaches courses in philosophy of biology and science, as well as in the philosophy of cognitive ethology, epistemology and, environmental ethics. Skipper is also an affiliate of the Environmental Studies Program.

In addition to publishing in Biology and Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Perspectives on Science, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Skipper has given numerous professional talks at the APA, HSS, ISHPSSB, and PSA. He was awarded an NSF grant for his work on scientific controversy dynamics, was Program Chair for the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science, was a Charles P. Taft Research Fellow during 2005-2006, and will be a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Durham during the spring of 2007.

Selected Publications

"Manipulating Underdermination in Scientific Controversy: The Case of the Molecular Clock", with Michael R. Dietrich, forthcoming in Perspectives on Science. (e-print to come)

"Stochastic Evolutionary Dynamics: Drift vs. Draft", Philosophy of Science, in press (2006).

"Thinking About Evolutionary Mechanisms: Natural Selection", with Roberta L. Millstein, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36C (2005): 327-246.

"Calibration of Laboratory Models in Population Genetics", Perspectives on Science 12 (2004): 369-393.

"The Heuristic Role of Sewall Wright's 1932 Adaptive Landscape Diagram", Philosophy of Science 71 (2004): 1176-1188.

"Perspectives on the Animal Mind", introduction to Biology and Philosophy 19 (2004): 483-653, edited by Colin Allen and Robert A. Skipper, Jr.

"The Persistence of the R. A. Fisher-Sewall Wright Controversy", Biology and Philosophy 17 (2002): 341-367.