Carol Cleland
Professor
carol.cleland@colorado.edu
303 735-4558

overview

Carol Cleland (PhD, Brown, 1981) arrived at CU Boulder in 1986, after having spent a year on a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University鈥檚 Center for the Study of Language and Information. She is a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute Affiliate, a member of CU Boulder鈥檚听. She was involved as Co-I and Key Collaborator on several science teams of the now disbanded NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI). 听

Carol Cleland鈥檚 research interests lie in the areas of Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Logic, and Metaphysics. Areas of special interest include: scientific methodology (historical science and the field sciences considered generally, and the role of anomalies in scientific discovery), scientific theories and the use of models (especially in the historical sciences), philosophy of biology (microbiology, astrobiology, nature of life, and the hypothesis of a 鈥榮hadow biosphere鈥�, a term which she coined), causation, space and time, supervenience, events, Church-Turing thesis and effective procedures.

Carol Cleland is the author of (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and co-author (with Mark Bedau) of (Cambridge University Press, 2010; reprinted in paperback 2018). She has published extensively in both science and philosophy journals.听 She is currently working on two projects: (i) rethinking mineralogical natural kinds in the context of what we are learning about the origin and evolution of minerals in planetary contexts and (ii) the role of anomalies in scientific discovery, especially in geology and biology.

For more information, see Professor Cleland's and CV.

Professor Cleland was interviewed in April 2017 for the CU Connections newsletter. .

selected publications

  • , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Perspective) 118 (2021), pp. 1-9.
  • Astrobiology 9 (2019), pp. 722-729.
  • , in Baker. V. (ed.) 125th Anniversary Volume of the Geological Society of America: Rethinking the Fabric of Geology, Special Paper 502 (2013), pp. 1-9.
  • Current Organic Chemistry: Special Issue on Prebiotic Chemistry (2012), pp. 1704-1709.
  • (Cleland, C. and Brindell, S.), in Pigliucci, M and Boudry, M. (eds.), Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2013), pp. 183-202.
  • Biology & Philosophy 28 (2013), pp. 189-204.
  • 鈥�," Synthese (2012).
  • 鈥�,鈥� British Journal of Philosophy of Science 62(3) (2011)
  • 鈥�,鈥� (with Davies, P., Benner, S., Cleland, C. E., Lineweaver, C. & C. McKay) Astrobiology 9 (2009): 241-249.
  • 鈥�,鈥� Stud. Hist. Phil. Bio. & Biomed. Sci. 38 (2007): 847-861.
  • 鈥溾�� (With C. Chyba) in Sullivan and Baross (eds.), Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology, Ch. 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2007): 119-131. (Reprinted in C. E. Cleland & M. A. Bedau (eds.) The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science. Cambridge 2010, pp. 326-339.)
  • , in Olszewksi, A., Wolenski, J. and R. Janusz (eds.), Church鈥檚 Thesis after Seventy Years. Berlin: Ontos Verlag (2006): 119-146.
  • 鈥�,鈥� (With S. Copley) International Journal of Astrobiology 4, (2005): pp. 165-173. (Reprinted in C. E. Cleland & M. A. Bedau (eds.) The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science. Cambridge (2010): 198-209.)
  • 鈥�The Concept of Computability,鈥� Theoretical Computer Science 317/1-3 (2004): 209-225.
  • 鈥�,鈥� Philosophy of Science 69 (2002): 474-496.
  • 鈥溾�� (with C. Chyba), Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 32(4) (2002): 387-93.
  • , Geology 29 (2001): 987-990.
  • , Minds and Machines 11 (2001): 219-237.
  • , Minds and Machines 3 (1993): 283-312.
  • , Synthese, Vol 86 (1991):229-254. (Reprinted in R. Casati & A. Varzi (eds.) Events. Dartmouth 1996: 373-400).
  • , Philosophical Studies, Vol 60 (1990): 257-280.
  • , American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 22 (1985): 287-298.
  • , Philosophical Studies, Vol. 46 (1984): 19-40.