John Beatty

Dr. Beatty is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His research focuses on the history, theoretical foundations, methodology, and socio-political dimensions of genetics and evolutionary biology. Current research projects concern, more specifically: 1) the distinction between “history” and “science,” and the respects in which evolutionary biology is as much like the former as it is like the latter; 2) changing views of contingency and necessity in the Darwinian Revolution; 3) the structure and value of narrative explanations; 4) relationships between biology and “the state,” from the Manhattan Project to the Human Genome Project; and 5) issues concerning the nature of scientific “consensus” and “authority.”