A new voice in the nature-nurture debate can be heard at the interface between evolution and development. Phenotypic integration--or, how large numbers of characteristics are related to make up the whole organism, and how these relationships evolve and change their function--is a major growth area in research, attracting the attention of evolutionary biologists, developmental biologists, and geneticists, as well as, more broadly, ecologists, physiologists, and paleontologists. This edited collection presents much of the best and most recent work the topic.
Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. His research is concerned with philosophy of science, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the relationship between science and religion.
He received a Doctorate in Genetics from the University of Ferrara in Italy, a PhD in Botany from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He has published over a hundred technical papers and several books. His most recent technical book is Nonsense on Stilts (University of Chicago Press). Prof. Pigliucci has been awarded the prestigious Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution. He has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "for fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack."
In the areas of outreach and critical thinking, Prof. Pigliucci has published in national magazines such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now, and The Philosopher's Magazine, among others. He has also been elected as a Consultant for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Pigliucci pens the "Rationally Speaking" blog (rationallyspeaking.org), co-hosts the Rationally Speaking podcast, and has authored the popular science book Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism and the Nature of Science (Sinauer). His forthcoming book is The Intelligent Person's Guide to the Meaning of Life (BasicBooks).
