Biography
Andrew Inkpen is an Assistant Professor at Mount Allison University in the Department of Philosophy and an Associate Fellow in the History of Science and Technology Programme at the University of King’s College. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia and has held positions at Dalhousie University, Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Brandon University. His research in the history and philosophy of science focuses on conceptual and methodological issues in ecology and evolutionary biology. He’s also a project leader for the McDonnell Initiative at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, where he focuses on facilitating collaborations between humanities researchers and life scientists with the aim of transforming the research of both fields through interactions and the co-production of knowledge. He is co-author of the forthcoming book Can Microbial Communities Regenerate? (University of Chicago Press; https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo163194783.html).
Publications
BOOKS
2022. Inkpen, SA, & WF Doolittle. Can Microbial Communities Regenerate? University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
2022. Inkpen SA. “Domestication as Natural Selection?” Metascience, 37: 157-62.
2022. Inkpen, SA. “Review of Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds. Luis A. Campos, Michael R. Dietrich, Tiago Saraiva, and Christian C. Young (eds.).” The Quarterly Review of Biology, 97: 127.
2021. Gillette, KS, SA Inkpen, & CT DesRoches. "Does environmental science crowd out non-epistemic values?." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 87: 81-92.
2021. Inkpen, S. A., & Doolittle, W. F. "Adaptive Regeneration Across Scales: Replicators and Interactors from Limbs to Forests." Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, 13.
2020. Inkpen, S. A., & DesRoches, C. T. "When ecology needs economics and economics needs ecology: Interdisciplinary exchange during the anthropocene." Ethics, Policy & Environment, 23(2), 203-221.
2019. Inkpen SA. “Health, Ecology, and the Microbiome.” eLife, 8: e47626.
2019. Wideman JG, Inkpen SA, Doolittle WF, Redfield RJ. “Mutationism, not Lamarckism, Captures the Novelty of CRISPR-Cas” Biology and Philosophy, 34: 12.
2019. DesRoches CT, Inkpen SA, Green TL. “The Eroding Artificial/Natural Distinction? Some Consequences for Ecology and Economics.” In M Nagatsu and A Ruzzene (eds.), Contemporary Philosophy and Social Science: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Bloomsbury Publishing, London: UK.
2019. Inkpen SA, DesRoches CT. “Revamping the Image of Science for the Anthropocene” Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, 11: 1-7.
2018. Doolittle WF, Inkpen SA. “Processes and Patterns of Interaction as Units of Selection: An Introduction to ITSNTS Thinking” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 115: 4006-14.
2017. Inkpen SA, Douglas GM, Brunet TDP, Leuschen K, Doolittle WF, Langille MGI. “The Coupling of Taxonomy and Function in Microbiomes.” Biology and Philosophy, 32: 1225-1243.
2017. Inkpen SA. “Demarcating Nature, Defining Ecology: Creating a Rationale for the Study of Nature’s ‘Primitive Conditions’.” Perspectives on Science, 25: 355-92.
2017. Inkpen SA. “Are Humans Disturbing Conditions in Ecology?” Biology and Philosophy, 32: 51-71.
2017. Stuart YE, Inkpen SA, Hopkins R, Bolnick DI. “Character displacement is an evolutionary pattern. So what causes it?” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 121: 711-715.
2016. Inkpen SA. “Like Hercules and the Hydra: Trade-offs and Strategies in Ecological Model-Building and Experimental Design” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 57: 34-43.
2016. Inkpen SA, Doolittle WF. “Molecular Phylogenetics and the Perennial Problem of Homology.” Journal of Molecular Evolution, 83: 184-192.
2014. Inkpen SA. “‘The Art Itself is Nature’: Darwin, Domestic Varieties, and the Scientific Revolution.” Endeavour, 38: 246-56.
Education
PhD (UBC)
BSc (SMU)
Teaching
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Environmental Philosophy
Bioethics
Science and Democracy
Research
History and Philosophy of Science
History and Philosophy of Biology
Environmental Ethics