University of Alabama at Birmingham

Faculty Member, Philosophy

About

General: My research focuses on philosophical issues concerning relationships between causation, probability, biology, mind, and culture.  I see my recent work on general causal and probabilistic characteristics of processes involved in evolution as a starting point for related projects concerning human evolution and culture. Among other things, I'm developing a new conception of what probability is in certain contexts (an "interpretation of probability"), and I've been collaborating with researchers in UAB's Department of Biostatistics on projects looking for evidence of certain kinds of natural selection in the human genome over the last few tens of thousands of years.  I'm also currently interested in using research on cognitive science of analogy and metaphor to develop models of cultural evolution which are richer than those common in the gene-culture coevolution tradition (Richerson/Boyd, Cavalli-Sforza/Feldman, Enquist, etc.).

Abstracts and links for my papers can be found at http://members.logical.net/~marshall/ .

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