About me

I investigate in particular how evolutionary theories require us to re-conceptualize our current worldviews; how evolutionary theories develop in biology; how they are applied to study symbolic (behavioral, sociocultural, and linguistic) evolution; and how biological and symbolic evolution are depicted in diagrams and cosmographies such as cycles, chains, scales, timelines, trees, and networks.

My research has to date resulted in the following contributions.

1) The Flower of Evolution: An educational tool to understand the evolution of evolutionary thinking

My interest in evolution has ignited me to introduce a new epistemological framework to conceptualize the schools and paradigms that characterize evolutionary research, useful for students across the sciences and humanities. I call this framework the Flower of Evolution. It consists of 7 petals, each representing major evolutionary schools: Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis, Microevolution, Mesoevolution, Macroevolution, Ecology, and Reticulate Evolution. The framework enables clearer demarcation of the Neodarwinian and Eco-Evo-Devo paradigms and the paradigmatic challenges posed to Neodarwinism by the schools of Ecology and Reticulate Evolution. My attention here is on the latter emerging school of reticulate evolution. I investigate the divergences and convergences between symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization, and infective heredity; how they redefine traditional evolutionary concepts in biology; and how these are relevant for to the sociocultural sciences.

2) Human Symbolic Evolution: Implementation of the Flower of Evolution into symbolic evolution research

The Flower of Evolution is a useful tool for analyzing ongoing tensions in the human symbolic sciences, tensions I have shown are caused by the differential implementation of the 7 evolution schools. Evolutionary epistemology, ethology, and psychology adopt a meso-evolutionary perspective in line with the Modern Synthesis. Communication theory, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology mimic micro-macro evolutionary divisions. Biosemiotics, evolutionary linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, and economics bring in eco-evo-devo and reticulate evolution perspectives. In association, research has focused on behaviorism versus physicalism; 4E cognition theories versus debates over units and levels of selection; and on replicator, individual, or community-level evolution. Raising awareness is a first step toward developing stronger, evolution-based theories of symbolism.

3) Language and Worldviews: Defining language and communication from an evolutionary point of view

In continuity with my interest in symbolic evolution, I propose new, evolution-founded definitions of language and communication. I define communication as the evolution of physical, biochemical, cellular, community, and technological information exchange. I define language as community communication, in which the information exchanged comprises evolving, individual- and group-constructed knowledge and beliefs that are enacted, narrated, or otherwise conveyed by evolving rule-governed and meaningful symbol systems, which are grounded, interpreted, and used from within evolving embodied, cognitive, ecological, sociocultural, and technological niches. These definitions identify the main differences between language and communication, and point toward new areas of research that transcend current fields and disciplines.

4) 7E Symbolism: Symbolism evolves, mostly extra-genetically, by ensembles of individuals, embodying, embedding, enacting, and extending cognition

I'm currently in the process of expanding and generalizing the 4E cognition framework, developed in philosophy of mind and action theory, to a 7E symbolic framework applicable across the sciences. I have already shown how a 7E framework greatly advances our understanding of complex skills in primates. I define skills as spatiotemporally embodied, embedded, enacted, extended, and evolving community traits, hierarchically made up of combinatorially or compositionally organized action units that underlie bioreality formation.

5) Hierarchy and Causality Theories: Aggregational, linear, nested, and interactional hierarchies and upward, downward, reticulate, and self-causation

My work on the Flower of Evolution and the nature of the symbolic sciences has led me to venture into metaphysics, where I have expanded on existing hierarchy and causality theories. Micro-, meso, and macroevolutionary schools analyze upward and downward causation in nested hierarchies. I show that the focus here lies on how evolution occurs within, rather than between, evolutionary lineages. Reticulate evolution, however, necessitates an examination of how different lineages interact with one another. Such analyses require what I call interactional hierarchies, and a recognition that causation can be reticulate or network-like. Research on hierarchies also requires a reappreciation of the hitherto neglected focal level of a hierarchy and how it can persist and perpetuate over time. I call this the problem of self-causation and link it to debates of symbolic agency, teleonomy, autopoiesis, and individuality.

6) Cosmologies, Cosmographies, and time: Wheels, Cycles, Chains, Scales, Chronologies, Timelines, Trees, Networks

Research on evolutionary hierarchies and causalities further aligns with my interest in cosmologies and cosmographies, how they are adopted and why they are periodically overthrown. My historiographic research demonstrates that Ancient worldviews described aspects of the world in terms of wheels and cycles; Judeo-Christian traditions used chains and scales; modern sciences introduced chronologies and timelines; and current sciences use trees and networks. I show that transitions between worldviews are correlated, if not induced, by the introduction of different notions of time.

7) Applied Evolutionary Epistemology: A universal evolution framework

These diverse research avenues all underlie my ultimate quest for a universal framework of evolution, which I call Applied Evolutionary Epistemology. Applied Evolutionary epistemology is both a theory and a methodology for analyzing evolution. Methodologically, it defines evolutionary research as a search for units, levels, mechanisms and processes of evolution that require allocation into hierarchies. Theoretically, it defines evolution as the congruence between epistemology and ontology through the formation of spatiotemporal biorealities characterizable by interactional hierarchies.

More details on these research avenues are available on the links that redirect to the different pages of this website.

Besides writing books and papers, lecturing, and speaking on the results of my own research, I actively engage in dissemination activities by editing book volumes and academic journals on these topics; and I contribute to global community building by organizing conferences and workshops, as well as coordinating education initiatives.

I am Editor-in-Chief of the Book Series Interdisciplinary Evolution Research (Springer Nature), Editor for BioSystems (Elsevier), Associate Editor for Evolutionary Biology (Springer Nature), and a board member of several academic journals.

My work has so far been sponsored by the University of Oxford, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, The Center for Philosophy of Science of the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon, the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Porto, the John Tempelton Foundation, the Marie Curie Actions, the American Museum of Natural History, the Konrad Lorenz Institute, the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research, and the Dutch Free University of Brussels.

I currently reside in Portugal with my husband, our two cats, and our numerous houseplants.