Michael Ghiselin

Michael T. Ghiselin (born May 13, 1939; died June 14, 2024) was an American biologist and philosopher as well as a historian of biology, formerly at the California Academy of Sciences.

There he stayed until 1967 as he was appointed assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley and later was chosen as a Guggenheim Fellow (1978–79).

[1] Ghiselin is famous for his work on sea slugs,[2][3][4] and had both a species (Hypselodoris ghiselini) and the defensive chemical that it contains (ghiselinin) named after him.

In other species, where the fish live in pairs, it is to an individual's advantage to be male when small and to turn into a female when it is larger.

His thought on Darwin's view of selection, whether to the individual or to the group, and sometimes apparently kin selectionist, has been criticised as inconsistent by the Darwinian philosopher Helena Cronin.

[14] As Chair of the Center for the History and Philosophy of Science his main responsibility was to organize scholarly meetings and to serve as Editor of the volumes based on them.