Discussing the generally ignored issue of the classification of natural objects in the philosophy of science, this book focuses on knowledge and social relations, and offers a way to understand classification as a necessary aspect of doing science.

Historically, naturalists who proposed theories of evolution, including Darwin and Wallace, did so in order to explain the apparent relationship of natural classification. This book begins by exploring the intimate historical relationship between patterns of classification and patterns of phylogeny. However, it is a circular argument to use the data for classification. Alec Panchen presents other evidence for evolution in the form of a historically based but rigorously logical argument. This is followed by a history of methods of classification and phylogeny reconstruction including current mathematical and molecular techniques. The author makes the important claim that if the hierarchical pattern of classification is a real phenomenon, then biology is unique as a science in making taxonomic statements. This conclusion is reached by way of historical reviews of theories of evolutionary mechanism and the philosophy of science as applied to biology. The book is addressed to biologists, particularly taxonomists, concerned with the history and philosophy of their subject, and to philosophers of science concerned with biology. It is also an important source book on methods of classification and the logic of evolutionary theory for students, professional biologists, and paleontologists.

This edited volume of 13 new essays aims to turn past discussions of natural kinds on their head. Instead of presenting a metaphysical view of kinds based largely on an unempirical vantage point, it pursues questions of kindedness which take the use of kinds and activities of kinding in practice as significant in the articulation of them as kinds. The book brings philosophical study of current and historical episodes and case studies from various scientific disciplines to bear on natural kinds as traditionally conceived of within metaphysics. Focusing on these practices reveals the different knowledge-producing activities of kinding and processes involved in natural kind use, generation, and discovery. Specialists in their field, the esteemed group of contributors use diverse empirically responsive approaches to explore the nature of kindhood. This groundbreaking volume presents detailed case studies that exemplify kinding in use. Newly written for this volume, each chapter engages with the activities of kinding across a variety of disciplines. Chapter topics include the nature of kinds, kindhood, kinding, and kind-making in linguistics, chemical classification, neuroscience, gene and protein classification, colour theory in applied mathematics, homology in comparative biology, sex and gender identity theory, memory research, race, extended cognition, symbolic algebra, cartography, and geographic information science. The volume seeks to open up an as-yet unexplored area within the emerging field of philosophy of science in practice, and constitutes a valuable addition to the disciplines of philosophy and history of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

A readily comprehensible guide for biologists, field taxonomists and interested laymen to one of the oldest problems in biology: the species problem. Written by a geneticist with extensive experience in field taxonomy, this practical book provides the sound scientific background to the problems arising with classifying organisms according to species. It covers the main current theories of specification and gives a number of examples that cannot be explained by any single theory alone.

Note about this ebook: This ebook exploits many advanced capabilities with images, hypertext, and interactivity and is optimized for EPUB3-compliant book readers, especially Apple's iBooks and browser plugins. These features may not work on all ebook readers. We organize things. We organize information, information about things, and information about information. Organizing is a fundamental issue in many professional fields, but these fields have only limited agreement in how they approach problems of organizing and in what they seek as their solutions. The Discipline of Organizing synthesizes insights from library science, information science, computer science, cognitive science, systems analysis, business, and other disciplines to create an Organizing System for understanding organizing. This framework is robust and forward-looking, enabling effective sharing of insights and design patterns between disciplines that weren’t possible before. The Professional Edition includes new and revised content about the active resources of the "Internet of Things," and how the field of Information Architecture can be viewed as a subset of the discipline of organizing. You’ll find: 600 tagged endnotes that connect to one or more of the contributing disciplines Nearly 60 new pictures and illustrations Links to cross-references and external citations Interactive study guides to test on key points The Professional Edition is ideal for practitioners and as a primary or supplemental text for graduate courses on information organization, content and knowledge management, and digital collections. FOR INSTRUCTORS: Supplemental materials (lecture notes, assignments, exams, etc.) are available at http://disciplineoforganizing.org. FOR STUDENTS: Make sure this is the edition you want to buy. There's a newer one and maybe your instructor has adopted that one instead.

A revealing and surprising look at how classification systems can shape both worldviews and social interactions. What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification—the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

First published in 1904, this book is a seminal work in the field of petrology. In it, the authors describe a new system for classifying igneous rocks based on their chemical and mineral makeup, a system that is still widely used today. With its rigorous analysis and detailed descriptions, this book is a must-read for anyone working in the field of geology. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Did you know that you are more closely related to a mushroom than to a daisy? That dinosaurs are still among us? That the terms "fish" and "invertebrates" do not indicate scientific groupings? All this is the result of major changes in classification. This book diagrams the tree of life according to the most recent methods of this system.