Nature of Classification

John S. Wilkins is Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and Associate Fellow at the University of Sydney, Australia. He works on evolution and religion, the philosophy of taxonomy, and the history of biology. He has published on cognition, cultural evolution, the philosophy of science, and on science communication.Malte C. Ebach is Senior Lecturer in Biogeography at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and has published on systematic and biogeographical theory and methods. He is an editor for the Journal of Biogeography, Zootaxa and Editor-in-Chief of the Species and Systematics book series.

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Nature of Science 2. Nature and Classification 3. Scientific Classification 4. Homology and Analogy 5. Monsters and Misclassifications 6. Observation, Theory and Domains 7. Radistics: A Neutral Terminology 8. Worth the Knowing Bibliography Index

“Wilkins and Ebach present an ambitious but well-motivated discussion for a theory-free classification which, if successful, would circumvent the problematic ladenness of observation. As such, The Nature of Classification succeeds in extending discussion of philosophy of classification beyond that of biological systematics and in forging a neutral terminology with which to do so.” (Catherine Kendig, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Vol. 37, August, 2015)