By Jennifer T. Allen
Julia Bursten, Rebekah Duke-Crockett, and Chad Risko
When Rebekah Duke-Crockett, a first-year Ph.D. student in chemistry, took Julia Bursten’s Philosophy of Science graduate seminar, she began thinking about the wealth of insights philosophy has for chemists. The questions brought up eventually led to a collaboration between Duke-Crockett, philosophy professor Bursten, philosophy Ph.D. alum Ryan McCoy, and chemistry professor Chad Risko.
That collaboration culminated in a recently published article in the Journal of American Chemical Society: “Promises and Perils of Big Data: Philosophical Constraints on Chemical Ontologies.”
“Philosophers of science spend a lot of time thinking about problems and questions relevant for chemistry but, unfortunately,