Dr Rachael L Brown
PhD, BA(Hons), BSc
Director, Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences and Lecturer, School of Philosophy
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
Areas of expertise
- History And Philosophy Of Science (Incl. Non Historical Philosophy Of Science) 220206
Research interests
I work primarily at the intersection of the philosophy of biology, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of science. I am particularly interested in the evolution of cognition and behaviour; the relationship between Evo-devo and the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis; model-based reasoning in biology and philosophy; and methodological issues in the study of animal behaviour and cognition.
Publications
- Brown, R, Brusse, C, Huebner, B et al 2020, 'Unification at the cost of realism and precision', Behavioural Brain Research, vol. 43, no. 95, pp. 27-28.
- Brown, R 2020, Why philosophers and scientists should work together, pp. online.
- Brown, R 2019, 'Infer with care: A critique of the argument from animals', Mind and Language, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 21-36.
- Brown, R 2018, 'Animal traditions: what they are, and why they matter', in Kristin Andrews and Jacob Beck (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds, Routledge, London, pp. 362-371.
- Brown, R 2017, 'Not statistically significant, but still scientific', Animal Sentience, vol. 16, no. 14, pp. 1pp-4pp.
- Brown, R 2015, 'A clear-eyed defense of philosophy of biology', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science (Part C), vol. 49, pp. 63-65pp.
- Brown, R 2015, 'Why development matters', Biology and Philosophy, vol. 30, no. 6, pp. 889-899.
- Brown, R 2014, 'Identifying Behavioral Novelty', Biological Theory, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 135-148pp.
- Brown, R 2014, 'Rethinking Behavioral Evolution', in Charles T. Wolfe et al. (ed.), Entangled Life, Springer, New York, pp. 237-260.
- Brown, R 2014, 'What Evolvability Really Is', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 549-572.
- Brown, R 2013, 'Learning, evolvability and exploratory behaviour: extending the evolutionary reach of learning', Biology and Philosophy, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 933-955.