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COHE faculty page
Massimo Pigliucci, Ph.D.
Faculty, Science and Humanism
Course author, Evolution, Creationism and the Nature of Science
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci is Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York - Stony Brook. His research is on the evolution of genotype-environment interactions; i.e., on nature-nurture problems.
He received his Doctorate in Genetics at the University of Ferrara in Italy and his Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Connecticut. He also holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Pigliucci has published fifty technical papers and two books on evolutionary biology (Phenotypic Evolution: A Reaction Norm Perspective for Sinauer, with Carl Schlichting; and Phenotypic Plasticity: Beyond Nature and Nurture, for Johns Hopkins University Press).
In 2004 Dr. Pigliucci was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the publishers of Science magazine. His nomination honored him for "fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack."
Dr. Pigliucci has been awarded several times the Oak Ridge National Labs award for excellence in research and has won the prestigious Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, of which he is now Vice President.
As a skeptic, he has published in national magazines such as Free Inquiry, Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now, and Secular Nation. He has given lectures for many humanist and freethought groups around the country and has debated several theists and creationists, including William Craig, William Dembski, Duane Gish, Ken Hovind, Walter ReMine, and Jonathan Wells.
Dr. Pigliucci has authored Tales of the Rational: Skeptical Essays About Nature and Science (Freethought Press, Atlanta) and Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science (Sinauer Associates). He produces a monthly e-column called Rationally Speaking, which is syndicated on the Institute's Darwin World Site.
Selected skeptic publications:
- Pigliucci, M. (2001) "The ethics of tit-for-tat," Philosophy Now 33:28-29.
- Pigliucci, M. (2001) "Design yes, intelligent no: a critique of intelligent design theory and neo-creationism," Skeptical Inquirer 25 (5):34-39.
- Pigliucci, M. (2001) "Chaos and complexity: should we be skeptic?", Skeptic 8(3):62-70.
- Pigliucci, M. (2000) "Personal gods, deism, & the limits of skepticism," Skeptic, 8(2):38-45
- Pigliucci, M. (1999) "Where do we come from? We still have few clues to the origin of life", Skeptical Inquirer 23(5):21-27
- Pigliucci, M. (1998) "A case against god: science and the falsifiability question in theology", Skeptic, 6(2):66-73
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