In 1926, Mally proposed the first formal deontic system. As Mally and others soon realized, this system had some rather strange consequences. We show that the strangeness of Mally’s system is not so much due to Mally’s informal deontic principles as to the fact that he formalized those principles in terms of the propositional calculus. If they are formalized in terms of relevant logic rather th...

BIES: Dr Mayr, I’d like to begin with several questions about your history and the history of ideas in evolutionary biology, then focus on some questions about specific issues in evolutionary biology and, finally, conclude with a discussion of some matters in the philosophy of science and of biology in particular. Let’s begin with the matters of history. This year is the 60 anniversary of publi...