Extinct blog
@extinctblog.bsky.social
360 followers 88 following 100 posts
Extinct, the philosophy of paleontology blog, publishes regular essays on the history and philosophy of the historical sciences (especially paleontology). http://www.extinctblog.org/ Max Dresow, managing editor: www.maxdresow.com
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Reposted by Extinct blog
journalphp.bsky.social
Call for papers: Ian Hacking and the Philosophy of Psychiatry. Deadline: 1st February 2026. Guest editors: Şerife Tekin and Jonathan Y. Tsou. Submit your work! think.taylorandfranc... #philsky #philpsy #philsci
Ian Hacking and the Philosophy of Psychiatry
Submit work that examines how Hacking’s historical and pragmatic approach to philosophy has reshaped inquiries into psychiatry.
think.taylorandfrancis.com
Reposted by Extinct blog
hscottfordsmand.bsky.social
🎉 can’t wait to dig into this book - and to add it to my syllabus for philosophers-to-be. The glimpses I’ve seen are full of exciting ideas, and I’m sure the full thing is even richer. #sts #philsci

🙌 to @adrian-currie.bsky.social and @phieveigl.bsky.social for pulling this into existence
adrian-currie.bsky.social
Book launch for “Methods in the Philosophy of Science: a user’s guide”. Ftf in Exeter and online on the 29th of Sept feat Sophie Veigl, Kerry McKenzie, Hasok Chang, and me. It should be fun! (the book will be open access in July, contact me in the meantime) www.exeter.ac.uk/events/detai... #philsci
Reposted by Extinct blog
tespiteri.bsky.social
I had a rich and wide-ranging conversation w/ Professor Philip Kitcher for the podcast this week.

We discuss his intellectual journey, interventions in creationism, sociobiology & the genome project, his philosophical evolution, and vision for philosophy serving the common good. A real privilege.
S5 E8 - Philip Kitcher on Philosophy for Science and the Common Good
Podcast Episode · The HPS Podcast - Conversations from History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science · 11/09/2025 · 48m
podcasts.apple.com
Reposted by Extinct blog
minouette.bsky.social
For Day 16 #sciArtSeptember prompt rift: my portrait of #geologist & oceanographic #cartographer Marie Tharp (1920-2006), whose pioneering, thorough & complete ocean floor maps with Bruce Heezen, made using realms of echo sounder data, revealed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.⁠ 🐡⚒️🧪👩🏼‍🔬 #histsci

After studying
My linocut portrait of Marie Tharp (woman in grey shirt with oversized glasses and red hair in up-do) in front of her physiographic of the Atlantic (in grey on teal) with mid-ocean ridge, resting her cheek on her left hand with elbow on table covered with depth sounder data.
Reposted by Extinct blog
alisabokulich.bsky.social
CFP on Recent Work in Philosophy of the Historical Sciences special issue Revue Philosophique de Louvain. Abstract 500 words to [email protected] & [email protected], by October 1, 2025.
Accepted abstracts full papers due July 1, 2026
pencelab.be/en/events/rp...
#HPS #paleosky
Call for Papers: Recent Work in the Philosophy of the Historical Sciences
pencelab.be
Reposted by Extinct blog
mcps-philsci.bsky.social
Our International Postdoc Forum is a virtual seminar series for early career researchers to share their work w/commentary by MCPS community members. Excited to welcome @rosetrappes.bsky.social (University of Bergen, Norway) at 1215 CT Wed 24 Sept. Sign up for Zoom link. buff.ly/MSAXLgY
Reposted by Extinct blog
richardfallon.bsky.social
In a few weeks, I'll be starting a new role as Research Associate in Natural History Humanities at Cambridge, based at the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social. As part of @camglamresearch.bsky.social, my project will be about 'Re-Excavating the Cambridge School of Geology, 1850–1914'.
Robert B. Farren's portrait of the elderly geologist Adam Sedgwick, cradling and gesturing to a globe.
Reposted by Extinct blog
minouette.bsky.social
Day 13 #SciArtSeptember prompt bottleneck, I’m interpreting literally with Japanese #geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi (1920-2007) 🧪🐡👩🏻‍🔬 #histsci who created tools that allowed her to make 1st measurements of CO2 in seawater, raised the alarm about nuclear fallout, tracing it in oceans & researched 🧵
Printed in a gradient of dark blue-green at the bottom through dark blue to light blue at the top, this is my 9.25” x 12.5” portrait of Japanese geochemist in the lab adjusting a round bottomed flask with other posts and an array of chemical glassware in the foreground. In the background are carved ocean waves so the top looks like sky over wavy ocean
Reposted by Extinct blog
ferwen.bsky.social
Annie Montague Alexander, naturalist & fossil hunter, died #OTD, 1950. She co-founded the museum of natural history of the University of California and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
wp.me/p3ihHu-1MU #WomeninSTEM #histsci
extinctblog.bsky.social
For the 40th(!) installment of my "Problematica" series, I'm celebrating one of my favorite writers, Richard Fortey, who died this past May. Fortey wrote these beautiful bouncy sentences that REFUSE to leave your head. Here I've assembled a few of my favorites
www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2025...
For the love of Fortey — Extinct
Problematica #40: In which Max pays tribute to the late paleontologist Richard Fortey by assembling some of his favorite Fortey-an sentences
www.extinctblog.org
Reposted by Extinct blog
darwinsbulldog.bsky.social
Historian of science Janet Browne, author of the definitive biography of Charles Darwin (Voyaging, 1995; The Power of Place, 2002) will publish an abridged and updated one-volume version next year with @princetonupress.bsky.social: bit.ly/4mS7R0Q

#HPS #histsci
Reposted by Extinct blog
minouette.bsky.social
Happy birthday to #geologist & #paleontogist Alice Wilson (1881-1964).⁠ 🐡🧪👩🏼‍🔬⚒️ #histsci

A job in the Mineralogy Division of the U of Toronto Museum was her entry into #geology. In 1909 as a museum assistant with Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), in Ottawa, she catalogued & labelled invertebrate 🧵
Linocut portrait of a young Alice Wilson with her hands under her chin printed in gold ink. Behind her is her own geological map of the Ottawa Valley with the different features on collaged translucent Japanese papers in raspberry, purple, yellow, pale blue, and beige in inks of similar but darker hues. “OTTAWA RIVER” is marked but the final R is obscured by her head.
Reposted by Extinct blog
dollyjorgensen.bsky.social
Join us Mon 1 Sept 2025 for @greenhouseuis.net #envhum book talk with @richardfallon.bsky.social on Contesting Earth’s History in Transatlantic Literary Culture 1860-1935: Believers & Visionaries on the Borderlines of Geology & Palaeontology (Oxford UP 2025).
newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
#histsci
On left: purple flower and underneath Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Book Talks
On right: cover of the book Contesting Earth's History in Transatlantic Literary Culture, 1860-1935 with drawings of many animals and two naked people
Reposted by Extinct blog
philipcball.bsky.social
Today is publication day for this beautiful thing. I hope that it will tell a broad audience what historians of science have now long recognized: that alchemy was not a superstitious aberration but rather, an important phase in the history of ideas and of manufacturing.
extinctblog.bsky.social
Not really, but that is certainly true (if you have a permissive sense of 'determine' in mind). Basically, the paper is an attempt to talk about scientific characterization without making everything about explanation
Reposted by Extinct blog
thebjps.bsky.social
The Interdisciplinary Entanglement of Characterization and Explanation
– Max Dresow & Alan C Love

Abstract in alt text or read it for free here:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

#philsci #philsky
ABSTRACT. Philosophers have traditionally focused on the nature of scientific explanation while ignoring the process by which features of the world are formulated as discrete explanantia and explananda. However, the characterization of phenomena is an important activity in its own right, and is intertwined with evaluations of the appropriateness and sufficiency of explanatory strategies. We explore this entanglement of characterization and explanation using an extended case study from deep time: research into the Cambrian explosion. Our analysis focuses on three spheres of research that together illustrate key features of characterization for complex phenomena, including open-endedness, interdisciplinarity, and a concern with explananda and explanantia alike. In addition, they suggest a pair of substantive claims: (1) characterizations of complex phenomena are frequently contested along several dimensions of descriptive understanding, and (2) the dynamics of characterization for complex phenomena are poorly described by models that treat recharacterization primarily as a response to explanatory failures.
Reposted by Extinct blog
tespiteri.bsky.social
🎙️ New HPS Pod!

I chat with Prof. Lydia Patton about HOPOS — the history of philosophy of science. From her editorship of the journal to the future of the discipline, Patton shares why a historical lens reshapes core philosophical questions.

🎧 Link in bio!

#HOPOS
S5 E7 - Lydia Patton on HOPOS
open.spotify.com
Reposted by Extinct blog
thebjps.bsky.social
Just accepted:

Situated Cognition in Early Modern Experimentation: The Case of Compelled Assent
– Kirsten Walsh, Adrian Currie & Tom Roberts

Abstract in alt text or read the full paper here:

#philsci #philsky #hps
ABSTRACT. The early moderns surely didn’t defend an embodied, extended, embedded, or enacted conception of the mind, but we aim to show that this perspective can make sense of some of their practices; in particular, the epistemology of early modern experimentation. Focusing on Newton’s early optical work, we argue that the epistemic warrant he claims for his experimental results turns crucially on how the experimenter is situated towards gaining particular kinds of maker’s knowledge. Our account provides one answer to a long-standing puzzle regarding Newton’s method: his appeal to ‘compelled assent’ as an epistemic standard. We thus provide both a novel interpretation of Newton’s epistemology and a proof of concept towards applying tools from contemporary philosophy of mind to the history of science.
extinctblog.bsky.social
Soooo. I have a new paper on the origin and spread of the expression "Cambrian explosion," with some fun mid-twentieth century paleo, as well as some remarks on post-Wonderful Life shenanigans. Also, Darwin, Lyell, Simpson, Preston Cloud, TC Chamberlin and more!
www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...
Max's new Cambrian paper — Extinct
Since I just posted my new paper on the historical challenge of classifying the Ediacaran biota , let me shamelessly promote another new paper, this one on the origin of the expression “Cambrian expl...
www.extinctblog.org
extinctblog.bsky.social
So... I have a new paper on the problem of classifying the Ediacaran biota, which includes a (very selective) historical narrative and some philosophical reflections, as well as a comparison with the problem of Burgess problematica
www.extinctblog.org/palaeonews/2...
Max's new Ediacaran paper — Extinct
Hey, so I wrote a paper about the problem of classifying Ediacaran organisms, which I worked shopped in an old blog post. You can read it here. https://rdcu.be/exKL3
www.extinctblog.org