David Lee Hull (June 15, 1935 – August 11, 2010) was an American philosopher who was most notable for founding the field

philosophy of biology The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemology, epistemological, metaphysics, metaphysical, and ethics, ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences. Although philosophers of science and ...

. Hull is recognized within evolutionary culture studies as contributing heavily in early discussions of the conceptualization of

memetics Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book '' The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that h ...

. In addition to his academic prominence, he was well known as a gay man who fought for the rights of other gay and lesbian philosophers. Hull was partnered with Richard "Dick" Wellman, a Chicago school teacher, until Wellman's passing during the drafting of ''Science as Process''.

Education and career

Hull initially got a bachelor's degree in Biology at Illinois Wesleyan University. He then became one of the first graduates of the

History and Philosophy of Science The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained primarily as either historians or as philosophers, there ...

department at

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

. After earning his PhD from IU, he taught at the

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UW–Milwaukee, UWM, or Milwaukee) is a Public university, public Urban university, urban research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It is the largest university in the Milwaukee metropo ...

for 20 years before moving to Northwestern, where he taught for another 20 years. Hull was a former president of the

Philosophy of Science Association The Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) is an international academic organization founded in 1933 that promotes research, teaching, and free discussion of issues in the philosophy of science from diverse standpoints. The PSA engages in activi ...

, the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), and the Society for Systematic Biology. He was particularly well known for his argument that species are not sets or collections but rather spatially and temporally extended individuals (also called the individuality thesis or "species-as-individuals" thesis). He is considered to have founded and systematically developed the area of philosophy of biology as it is understood in contemporary philosophy. Hull proposed an elaborate discussion of science as an evolutionary process in his 1988 book, which also offered a historical account of the "taxonomy wars" of the 1960s and 1970s between three competing schools of taxonomy:

phenetics In biology, phenetics (; ), also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually with respect to morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary relation. It is ...

evolutionary systematics Evolutionary taxonomy, evolutionary systematics or Darwinian classification is a branch of biological classification that seeks to classify organisms using a combination of phylogenetic relationship (shared descent), progenitor-descendant relati ...

, and

cladistics Cladistics ( ; from Ancient Greek 'branch') is an approach to Taxonomy (biology), biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesiz ...

. In Hull's view, science evolves like organisms and populations do, with a demic population structure, subject to selection for ideas based on "conceptual inclusive credit." Either novelty or citation of work gives credit, and the professional careers of scientists share in credit by using successful research. This is a "hidden hand" account of scientific progress. Additionally, Hull regularly contributed to a variety of studies of evolutionary culture. He contributed to philosophical and empirical accounts of the evolution of science and evolutionary epistemology. While most of his work is in metaphysics and epistemology of evolution and biology, some of his work is closely related to what has since been called

Bibliometrics Bibliometrics is the application of statistical methods to the study of bibliographic data, especially in scientific and library and information science contexts, and is closely associated with scientometrics (the analysis of scientific metri ...

Scientometrics Scientometrics is a subfield of informetrics that studies quantitative aspects of scholarly literature. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academic journals, the understanding of scientific citati ...

, or Science of Science. He forwarded citation analysis to develop an account of the evolutionary survival of scientific ideas which has a direct relationship to what has been called ''Knowledge Memes'' or ''Science Memes''. He also contributed to evolutionary culture theory more broadly by contributing to initial discussions surrounding the generalization of Richard Dawkins' evolutionary vehicles in memetics research. In relation to Richard Dawkins' theory of replicators, Hull introduced the notion of ''interactors.'' He was Dressler Professor in the Humanities Emeritus at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

.(archived link)
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Bibliography

*Hull, D. L. (1964) Consistency and monophyly. ''

Systematic Zoology Systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: phylogenetic trees, phylogenies). Phyl ...

'' 13: pages 1-11. *Hull, D. L. (1965) The effect of essentialism on taxonomy: two thousand years of stasis. ''

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science ''British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'' is a peer-reviewed, academic journal of philosophy, owned by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and published by University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes work that uses p ...

'' 15: Pages 314–326; 16: pages 1–18. *Hull, D. L. (1966) Phylogenetic numericlature. ''Systematic Zoology'' 15: pages 14-17. *Hull, D. L. (1967) Certainty and circularity in evolutionary taxonomy. ''

Evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

'' 21: pages 174-189. *Hull, D. L. (1968) The operational imperative—sense and nonsense in operationalism. ''Systematic Zoology'' 17: pages 438-457. *Hull, D. L. (1969) Morphospecies and biospecies: a reply to Ruse. ''The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'' 20: pages 280-282. *Hull, D. L. (1970) Contemporary systematic philosophies. ''

Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics The ''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics'' is an annual scientific journal published by Annual Reviews. The journal was established in 1970 as the ''Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics'' and changed its name beginning in 200 ...

'' 1: pages 19-54. *Hull, D. L. (1973) ''Darwin and His Critics: The Reception of Darwin's Theory of Evolution by the Scientific Community''. Cambridge, Massachusetts:

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

; reprinted by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

, 1983, . *Hull, D. L. (1974) ''Philosophy of Biological Science''. Englewood Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it ...

, ; translated into Portuguese (1975), Japanese (1994). *Hull, D. L. (1976) Are species really individuals? ''Systematic Zoology'' 25: pages 174-191. *Hull, D. L. (1978) A matter of individuality. ''

Philosophy of Science Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. Amongst its central questions are the difference between science and non-science, the reliability of scientific theories, ...

''. 45: pages 335-360. *Hull, D. L. (1978) The principles of biological classification: the use and abuse of philosophy. Volume 2, pages 130–153. ''Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association.'' *Hull, D. L. (1979) The limits of cladism. ''Systematic Zoology'' 28: pages 416-440. *Hull, D. L. (1980) Individuality and selection. ''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics'' 11: pages 311-332. *Hull, D. L. (1981) Kitts and Kitts and Caplan on species. ''Philosophy of Science'' 48: pages 141-152. *Hull, D. L. (1981) Metaphysics and common usage. ''

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of Open Peer Commentary established in 1978 by Stevan Harnad and published by Cambridge University Press. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal ...

'' 4: pages 290-291. *Hull, D. L. (1983) Karl Popper and Plato's metaphor. pages 177–189 in N. I. Platnick, and V. A. Funk, eds. ''Advances in Cladistics, Volume 2''

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's la ...

, New York. *Hull, D. L. (1983) Thirty-one years of Systematic Zoology. ''Systematic Zoology'' 32: pages 315-342. *Hull, D. L. (1984) Cladistic theory: hypotheses that blur and grow. pages 5–23 in T. Duncan, and T. F. Stuessy, eds. ''Cladistics: perspectives on the reconstruction of evolutionary history.'' Columbia University Press, New York. *Hull, D. L. 1984. Can Kripke alone save essentialism? A reply to Kitts. ''Systematic Zoology'' 33: pages 110-112. *Hull, D. L. (1988) ''Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, . *Hull, D. L. (1989) ''The Metaphysics of Evolution''. Stony Brook, New York:

State University of New York Press The State University of New York Press (more commonly referred to as the SUNY Press) is a university press affiliated with the State University of New York system. The press, which was founded in 1966, is located in Albany, New York and publishe ...

, . *Hull, D. L. (1992
"Review of ''The Scientific Attitude''"
''Current Comments'' 15 (September 28): pages 149–154. *Hull, D. L. (1997) The ideal species concept—and why we can't get it. pages 357–380 in M. F. Claridge, H. A. Dawah, and M. R. Wilson, eds. ''Species: the units of biodiversity.'' Chapman & Hall, London. *Hull, D. L. (1999) The use and abuse of Sir Karl Popper. ''

Biology & Philosophy ''Biology & Philosophy'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles about philosophy of biology, broadly understood to span conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues in the biological sciences. The journal was founded by ...

'' 14: pages 481-504. *Hull, D. L. (1999
"Evolutionists red in tooth and claw"
''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'', 398 (April): page 385. *Hull, D. L. (2000
"Activism, scientists and sociobiology"
''Nature'' 407 (6805): pages 673–674. *Hull, D. L. (2001
"Replicators and interactors"
In his ''Science and Selection''. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, pages 13–32. *Hull, D. L. (2001) The role of theories in biological systematics. '' Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences'' 32: pages 221-238. *Hull, D. L. (2002) Words and words about species. ''Evolution'' 56: pages 426-428. *Hull, D. L. (2002a
"A career in the glare of public acclaim"
''Bioscience'' 52 (September): pages 837–841. *Hull, D. L. (2002b
"Explanatory styles in science"
''

American Scientist ''American Scientist'' (informally abbreviated ''AmSci'') is an American bimonthly science and technology magazine published since 1913 by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. In the beginning of 2000s the headquarters was moved to ...

'', September. *Hull, D. L., R. Langman and S. Glenn (2001
"A general account of selection: biology, immunology and behavior"
''Behavioral and Brain Sciences'' 24 (3): pages 511–528. *Hull, D. L. and M. Ruse, eds., (1998) ''The Philosophy of Biology'' Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, .

References

External links

David Hull PublicationsDavid Hull's Natural Philosophy of Science
– by Paul E. Griffiths
The Evolution of a Proof: Review of ''Darwin and His Critics''
– by

Peter Medawar Sir Peter Brian Medawar (; 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance have been fundamental to the medical practice of tissue and organ ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hull, David 1935 births 2010 deaths 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Charles Darwin biographers Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Illinois Indiana University Bloomington alumni American philosophers of science University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty Northwestern University faculty American gay writers Writers from Chicago Writers from Indiana Writers from Wisconsin Philosophers of biology American LGBTQ scientists Gay academics Gay scientists American LGBTQ rights activists LGBTQ philosophers

Education and career

Bibliography

See also

References

External links