xxvAcknowledgments
FIRST EDITION
This book has taken me the better part of a decade to write, and I have done so with
the aid of many people. I am consistently surprised and pleased to find that even
those individuals with whom I have great disagreements over species concepts turn
out to be extremely nice, helpful and above all scholarly individuals. I never met
Mayr, but those I know who have say the same thing about him. So, I am deeply
indebted to the following for criticism, editing, material, suggestions and the occa-
sional expression of outright incredulity:
Gareth J. Nelson and Neil Thomason, who were all that a doctoral candidate
could desire of thesis advisors, and whose critical comments have helped make my
thesis, from which this evolved, a much better work;
Quentin Wheeler, Malte Ebach, and Chuck Crumley for editorial advice and help.
In alphabetical order, Noelie Alito, Mike Dunford, Malte Ebach, Greg Edgcombe,
Dan Faith, Michael Ghiselin, Paul Griffiths, Colin Groves, John Harshman, Jody
Hey, Jon Hodge, David Hull, Jon Kaplan, Mike S.-Y. Lee, Murray Littlejohn, Brent
Mishler, Larry Moran, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ian Musgrave, Gary Nelson, Mike
Norén, Gordon McOuat, Massimo Pigliucci, Tom Scharle, Kim Sterelny, Neil
Thomason, Charissa Varma, John Veron, Quentin Wheeler, David Williams, and
Polly Winsor, who all provided information, criticism, advice, and assistance, some
considerable;
Members of the audiences at the 2000 Australasian Association for the History,
Philosophy and Social Studies of Science Association conference at the University
of Sydney and the 2001 International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social
Studies of Biology conference in Hamden, Connecticut, and the Systematics Forum
at the Melbourne Museum, run by Robin Wilson; Michael Devitt also forced me
to reassess the nature of essentialism at a later workshop, although without much
success.
Polly Winsor, David Hull, Joel Cracraft, Norman Platnick and Ward Wheeler gra-
ciously granted time for an interview, and Joel has been of particular help with the
phylogenetic conception. I must especially thank the late Herb Wagner, John Veron,
Mike Dunford, Tom Scharle, and Scott Chase for technical information provided.
Other acknowledgements are made in the notes. I sincerely apologize to anyone I
have left unjustly unthanked.
I owe a debt to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne,
which was my employer during my PhD candidacy, and to the Biohumanities Project
(Federation Fellowship FF0457917), under the direction of Paul Griffiths, at the
University of Queensland, where the bulk of the work on the late Middle Ages and
Renaissance, and some of the work on the eighteenth century was done, with the
assistance of the library there. I must make special mention of the Gallica proj-
ect at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (gallica.bnf.fr), the Internet Archive