The Constitution of Paleobiological Data Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Heidelberg vorgelegt von: Marco Tamborini Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Peter McLaughlin Zweitgutachter: Dr. David Sepkoski Datum: 21.01.2015 For my parents Acknowledgements First and foremost I want to thank my supervisors Peter McLaughlin and David Sepkoski. A great of people supported, assisted, and advised me over these three years: Renato Pettoello, Gianni Barlassina, Derek Turner, Michael Benton, Michele Cardani, Roberta and Giulia Migliorini, Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, Fausto Carcassi, Anannya Chakraborty, Daniela Pensotti, Edoardo Fertitta, Paolo Garavaglia, and Gabriele Ricotta. Moreover, I thank Lorraine Daston and the members of her department. A special recognition goes out to my family (my father Daniele, my mother Maria Pia, and my brother Paolo) and Verena Rith. Contact Marco Tamborini: [email protected] 3 4 Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 8 Why is data so central? .................................................................................................................. 10 Is there something important in paleontological data? Nomothetic, idiographic and the dark abyss of deep time. ...................................................................................................................... 13 Paleontological sciences in German-speaking area during the 19th century ................. 17 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 19 Chapter I. Patterns and History: The Fossil Record into the Flow of deep Time ........... 20 Chapter II. The Making of Paleontological Data...................................................................... 20 Chapter III. A strenuous Effort of Thought: Zittel’s Heredity .............................................. 21 Chapter IV. How to observe? ........................................................................................................ 21 Chapter V. How an Epistemic Practice shaped its Data: Formenreihen and Evolution 22 Chapter VI. Paleontology and Darwinian Theory of Evolution: The dangerous Role of Statistics .......................................................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter VII. On the Notion of Paleontological Representation: The Levels of Constitution of Paleobiological Data ....................................................................................................... 23 Chapter VIII. Paleobiological Data and Phenomena .............................................................. 23 Chapter I. Patterns and History: The Fossil Record into the Flow of deep Time.. 25 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 25 Bronn’s Education: The Importance of Kameralwissenschaft ............................................ 27 Historical Roots of Bronn’s Data ................................................................................................. 33 Bronn’s mature Conceptualisation of the Fossil Record: How to put Events in Deep Time .................................................................................................................................................................. 41 Conclusion: Bureaucratic Statistik into paleontological data............................................. 51 Chapter II. The Making of Paleontological Data ............................................................ 54 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 54 On the Notion of ‘paleontological Data’ ..................................................................................... 57 Zittel’s education and teaching.................................................................................................... 60 Zittel’s Notion of paleontological Data ...................................................................................... 61 Epistemological and ontological Consequences of this Coming into Being .................... 70 Data, Facts, and Events: epistemic Things and epistemic Virtues ..................................... 72 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter III. A Strenuous Effort of Thought: Zittel’s Legacy ........................................ 80 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 80 Zittel’s Paleontological Data at the End of 19th Century ....................................................... 82 5 Contents Palaeontographica and Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde ......................................................................................................................................... 87 Zittel’s Heredity and the Attempt to unify Vertebrate with Invertebrate Data during the first Half of 20th Century. ..................................................................................................................... 89 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 93 Chapter IV. How to observe? ............................................................................................... 97 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 97 How to observe? Facts, Events, and The geological Law of Development of Molluscs . 99 How to re-observe Time in the Form of Space? .................................................................... 106 From Local to Global History...................................................................................................... 108 Oppel’s Zone ................................................................................................................................... 111 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 117 Chapter V. How an Epistemic Practice shapes its Data: Formenreihen and Evolution ............................................................................................................................................ 119 Introduction. Zone: Range or Assemblage?............................................................................ 119 Genetic Relationship .................................................................................................................... 121 “The paleontologist as an observer is practically immortal”: Genetic Relationships and Evolution ....................................................................................................................................................... 127 Chapter VI. Paleontology and the Darwinian Theory of Evolution: The dangerous Role of Statistics ............................................................................................................................... 138 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 138 The paleontological Perception of Darwin’s Theory ........................................................... 141 Statistical Treatment of Data: an Introduction ..................................................................... 142 The Statistical Treatment of the Fossil Record ..................................................................... 148 Geological Biology ......................................................................................................................... 157 On the Presumed Incompleteness of the Paleontological Tradition .............................. 161 Rapid Evolution is difficult to Account for by any Working of Natural Selection. ....... 166 Neumayr’s Reaction: the Rejection of the statistical Treatment of Data ....................... 174 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 176 Chapter VII. On the Notion of Paleontological Representation: The Levels of Constitution of the Paleobiological Data ................................................................................... 178 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 178 Representation by Ostension or Description ........................................................................ 182 How Representations Literally Construct the Ontological Features of their Objects 191 Formenreihen ................................................................................................................................ 193 6 Contents Williams’ Tables ............................................................................................................................ 197 To Represent is to Constrain .....................................................................................................