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716The anachronistic anarchistPhilosophical Studies 81 (2-3). 1996.A reading of Feyerabend in Against Method, and a comparison of C.S. Peirce.
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622Response to Puts and Dawood's 'The Evolution of Female Orgasm: Adaptation or Byproduct?'--Been ThereTwin Studies and Human Genetics 9 (4). 2006.
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659Why the Gene will not returnPhilosophy of Science 72 (2): 287-310. 2005.I argue that four of the fundamental claims of those calling themselves `genic pluralists'Philip Kitcher, Kim Sterelny, and Ken Watersare defective. First, they claim that once genic selectionism is recognized, the units of selection problems will be dissolved. Second, Sterelny and Kitcher claim that there are no targets of selection. Third, Sterelny, Kitcher, and Waters claim that they have a concept of genic causation that allows them to give independent genic causal accounts of all selection …Read more
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131The role of 'complex' empiricism in the debates about satellite data and climate modelsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (2): 390-401. 2012.climate scientists have been engaged in a decades-long debate over the standing of satellite measurements of the temperature trends of the atmosphere above the surface of the earth. This is especially significant because skeptics of global warming and the greenhouse effect have utilized this debate to spread doubt about global climate models used to predict future states of climate. I use this case from an under-studied science to illustrate two distinct philosophical approaches to the relation …Read more
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996Confirmation and Robustness of Climate ModelsPhilosophy of Science 77 (5). 2010.Recent philosophical attention to climate models has highlighted their weaknesses and uncertainties. Here I address the ways that models gain support through observational data. I review examples of model fit, variety of evidence, and independent support for aspects of the models, contrasting my analysis with that of other philosophers. I also investigate model robustness, which often emerges when comparing climate models simulating the same time period or set of conditions. Starting from Michael…Read more
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9Selection Models and the Darwinian Theory of Natural SelectionPhilosophie Et Culture: Actes du XVIIe Congrès Mondial de Philosophie 3 108-112. 1988.
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1617Empiricism, Objectivity, and ExplanationMidwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1): 121-131. 1993.We sley Salmon, in his influential and detailed book, Four Decades of Scientific Explanation, argues that the pragmatic approach to scientific explanation, “construed as the claim that scientific explanation can be explicated entirely in pragmatic terms” (1989, 185) is inadequate. The specific inadequacy ascribed to a pragmatic account is that objective relevance relations cannot be incorporated into such an account. Salmon relies on the arguments given in Kitcher and Salmon (1987) to ground thi…Read more
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1542Pre-Theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of female sexualityPhilosophical Studies 69 (2-3): 139-153. 1993.My contribution to this Symposium focuses on the links between sexuality and reproduction from the evolutionary point of view.' The relation between women's sexuality and reproduction is particularly importantb ecause of a vital intersectionb etweenp olitics and biology feminists have noticed, for more than a century, that women's identity is often defined in terms of her reproductive capacity. More recently, in the second wave of the feminist movement in the United States, debates about women's…Read more
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83I—Elisabeth A. Lloyd: Varieties of Support and Confirmation of Climate ModelsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1): 213-232. 2009.
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54Evaluation of Evidence in Group Selection DebatesPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986. 1986.I address the controversy in evolutionary biology concerning which levels of biological entity (units) can and do undergo natural selection. I refine a definition of the unit of selection, first presented by William Wimsatt, that is grounded in the structure of natural selection models. I examine Elliott Sober's objection to this structural definition, the "homogeneous populations" problem; I find that neither the proposed definition nor Sober's own causal account can solve the problem. Sober, i…Read more
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954A semantic approach to the structure of population geneticsPhilosophy of Science 51 (2): 242-264. 1984.A precise formulation of the structure of modern evolutionary theory has proved elusive. In this paper, I introduce and develop a formal approach to the structure of population genetics, evolutionary theory's most developed sub-theory. Under the semantic approach, used as a framework in this paper, presenting a theory consists in presenting a related family of models. I offer general guidelines and examples for the classification of population genetics models; the defining features of the models…Read more
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Indiana University, BloomingtonDepartment of History and Philosophy of Science and MedicineDistinguished Professor
Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |