Geologist receiving 2022 Hagan Award to supply lecture at present | Information, Sports activities, Jobs

Dr. Thomas Hegna

The 2022 William T. and Charlotte N. Hagan Younger Scholar/Artist Award shall be introduced to State College of New York at Fredonia Division of Geology and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Thomas Hegna at a ceremony in Rosch Recital Corridor at 2 p.m. at present.

Hegna can even give a lecture, “Species, Imprecise Boundaries, and Biodiversity: Reframing Woodger’s Paradox,” instead of the Robert W. Kasling Lecture Award that won’t be given this 12 months. A lot of Hegna’s speak shall be drawn from a lecture he gave on the Way forward for the Previous: Philosophical Points within the Historic Sciences digital convention held in July.

Woodger was a British biologist and thinker from the primary half of the 20th century. Woodger’s Paradox might be outlined as the conclusion that species membership is historically thought to be a binary matter – both a species is part of a given species, or it isn’t.

The paradox that bears his title appears to have first been posed in an appendix to his 1952 guide, “Biology and Language,” Hegna suggests. “He was not terribly succinct in his phrasing, so I desire the phrasing from Willermet and Hill, 1997: ‘… if an animal can solely be a member of 1 taxonomic unit (akin to species), then at sure factors alongside an evolutionary trajectory, a toddler should belong to a distinct species than its mother and father.’”

Hegna’s interpretation is that this paradox demonstrates that the temporal boundaries of species are inherently subjective or arbitrary. And this interpretation raises a complete host of thorny, beforehand unrecognized, points for biology/paleontology/taxonomy/conservation, and so on., Hegna mentioned.

The annual Hagan award, created by means of the Fredonia Faculty Basis, which acknowledges a person who has made excellent latest achievements in analysis or creativity, is known as in honor of SUNY Distinguished Professor William T. Hagan, an eminent scholar specializing within the historical past of the American Indian, who taught at SUNY Fredonia from 1965 to 1988, and his spouse, Charlotte.

The award ceremony and lecture are free and open to the general public.

At the moment’s breaking information and extra in your inbox