Contact Derek Turner

Education: B.A., American University;
M.A., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Derek Turner’s research focuses on philosophical issues in historical science, especially paleontology, geology, and evolutionary biology. His book, Making Prehistory: Historical Science and the Scientific Realism Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2007), argues that the scientific realism debate has been skewed by the failure to take historical science seriously.

Read the Notre Dame Philosophical Review of Derek Turner's book.

Publisher’s Web site

• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Biology
• Environmental Philosophy
• Bioethics

Derek Turner regularly teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Logic, Bioethics, Thinking Philosophically About the Environment, Philosophy of Science, and Darwin. He also enjoys teaching courses on the history of philosophy.

At Convocation in 2007, Turner was awarded the John S. King Award, established to recognize teacher-scholars with high standards of teaching excellence and concern for students. He delivered an address "Can Excellence Be Taught?" at the 2008 Honors & Awards assembly.

In the spring of 2008, Turner was a visiting fellow at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Philosophy of Science. For more information: visit http://www.pitt.edu/~pittcntr/

Turner also belongs to the College's Goodwin-Niering Center for Conservation Biology and Environmental Studies.

Research in the philosophy of science:

• “How Much Can We Know About the Causes of Evolutionary Trends?” Biology and Philosophy 24(2009): 341-357.
• “Beyond Detective Work: Empirical Testing in Paleobiology,” in M. Ruse and D. Sepkoski (eds.), The Paleobiological Revolution: Essays on the Growth of Modern Paleontology, University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 201-214. A condensed version of this paper also appears in M. Ruse (editor), The Philosophy of Biology. Prometheus Books, 2007, pp. 193-201.
• “Just Another Drug? A Philosophical Assessment of Randomized, Controlled Studies of Intercessory Prayer,” Journal of Medical Ethics 32(2006): 487-490.
• “The Progress of Darwinism: A Review of Timothy Shanahan, The Evolution of Darwinism: Selection, Adaptation, and Progress in Evolutionary Biology,” in Biology and Philosophy, 21(2006): 277-285.
• “Local Underdetermination in Historical Science,” Philosophy of Science 72(2005): 209-230.
• “Universal Darwinism and Process Essentialism,” in Nathalie Gontier, Jean Paul van Bendegem, and Diederik Aerts (eds.), Theory and Decision Library A, volume 39: Evolutionary Epistemology, Language, and Culture. Springer, 2005.
• “Misleading Observable Analogues in Paleontology,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 36(2005): 175-183.
• “An Evolutionary Account of Chronic Pain: Integrating the Natural Method in Evolutionary Psychology,” with Ken Sufka (Department of Neuroscience, University of Mississippi), Philosophical Psychology 18(2005): 243-257.
• “The Past vs. the Tiny: Historical Science and the Abductive Arguments for Realism,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 35 (March 2004): 1-17.
• “The Functions of Fossils: Inference and Explanation in Functional Morphology,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science C: Biology and Biomedical Sciences 31(March 2000): 193-212.
• “Sic Transitivity: A Reply to McGrew and McGrew,” with John Post (Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University). Journal of Philosophical Research XXV (January 2000): 67-82.
  
  In Environmental Ethics:
  
  
• “Why Not NIMBY?” with Simon Feldman, Ethics, Place, and Environment, in press.
• “Ecosabotage,” in the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, Thomson Gale publishers, 2009.
• “Monkeywrenching, Perverse Incentives, and Ecodefence,” Environmental Values 15(2006): 213-232.
• “Are We at War With Nature?” Environmental Values 14(2005): 21-36. Reprinted in Michael Ruse, ed., Philosophy of Biology, second edition. Prometheus Books, 2007, pp. 329-345.
• “The Lack of Clarity in the Precautionary Principle,” with Lauren Hartzell (Connecticut College, Class of 2003, now Department of Philosophy, Stanford University), Environmental Values 13 (November 2004): 449-460.