Title:
What is a specimen?
Abstract:
Specimens play an important part in scientific research. Paradigmatically, specimens are used in the life sciences, including in natural history, where specimens are collected, prepared, and sometimes displayed in museum exhibits. Yet, even within natural history, let alone the life sciences more broadly, the concept of a specimen is somewhat vague to begin with, and technological and scientific advances are stretching the concept to cover ‘extended’ or ‘digital’ specimens, as well as their more familiar material counterparts.
In this talk, I will start from some key functions specimens play in natural history and related sciences to ask, what an appropriate ontology of specimens might look like. Specifically, I seek to identify a) the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a candidate for specimenhood, and b) criteria for identity over time needed for a specimen to count as the same specimen.