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400Individuality and adaptation across levels of selection: How shall we name and generalize the unit of Darwinism?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 96 (21): 11904-09. 1999.Two major clarifications have greatly abetted the understanding and fruitful expansion of the theory of natural selection in recent years: the acknowledgment that interactors, not replicators, constitute the causal unit of selection; and the recognition that interactors are Darwinian individuals, and that such individuals exist with potency at several levels of organization (genes, organisms, demes, and species in particular), thus engendering a rich hierarchical theory of selection in contrast …Read more
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152Race and Gender in ReserchIn Ezio Di Nucci, Ji-Young Lee & Isaac A. Wagner (eds.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022.This chapter explores two of the most studied and most damaging aspects of such societal influence on science: racial and gender biases. We discuss two major domains of biological and medical research involving race and gender: cognitive differences research and reproductive health science. In each case, we explore the influence of sexist values like androcentric bias—where researchers focus on men and male bodies as the alleged “norm”—and racist values like white supremacy—where researchers pri…Read more
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134Holobionts as Units of Selection and a Model of Their Population Dynamics and EvolutionBiological Theory 13 (1): 44-65. 2018.Holobionts, consisting of a host and diverse microbial symbionts, function as distinct biological entities anatomically, metabolically, immunologically, and developmentally. Symbionts can be transmitted from parent to offspring by a variety of vertical and horizontal methods. Holobionts can be considered levels of selection in evolution because they are well-defined interactors, replicators/reproducers, and manifestors of adaptation. An initial mathematical model is presented to help understand …Read more
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134Why the Causal View of Fitness SurvivesPhilosophy of Science 78 (2): 209-224. 2011.We critically examine Denis Walsh’s latest attack on the causalist view of fitness. Relying on Judea Pearl’s Sure-Thing Principle and geneticist John Gillespie’s model for fitness, Walsh has argued that the causal interpretation of fitness results in a reductio. We show that his conclusion only follows from misuse of the models, that is, (1) the disregard of the real biological bearing of the population-size parameter in Gillespie’s model and (2) the confusion of the distinction between ordinary…Read more
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129The 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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121The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ mechanics of the rejection of (climate) science: simulating coherence by conspiracismSynthese 195 (1): 175-196. 2018.Science strives for coherence. For example, the findings from climate science form a highly coherent body of knowledge that is supported by many independent lines of evidence: greenhouse gas emissions from human economic activities are causing the global climate to warm and unless GHG emissions are drastically reduced in the near future, the risks from climate change will continue to grow and major adverse consequences will become unavoidable. People who oppose this scientific body of knowledge …Read more
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99Units and levels of selectionStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.The theory of evolution by natural selection is, perhaps, the crowning intellectual achievement of the biological sciences. There is, however, considerable debate about which entity or entities are selected and what it is that fits them for that role. This article aims to clarify what is at issue in these debates by identifying four distinct, though often confused, concerns and then identifying how the debates on what constitute the units of selection depend to a significant degree on which of t…Read more
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81I—Elisabeth A. Lloyd: Varieties of Support and Confirmation of Climate ModelsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 83 (1): 213-232. 2009.
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67Rx: Distinguish group selection from group adaptationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4): 628-629. 1994.I admire Wilson & Sober's (W & S's) aim, to alert social scientists that group selection has risen from the ashqs, and to explicate its relevance to the behavioral sciences. Group selection has beenwidely misunderstood; furthermore, both authors have been instrumental in illuminating conceptual problems surrounding higher-level selection. Still, I find that this target article muddies the waters, primarily through its shifting and confused definition of a "vehicle" of selection. The fundamental …Read more
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66Severe weather event attribution: Why values won't go awayStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84 142-149. 2020.
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65Exaptation Revisited: Changes Imposed by Evolutionary Psychologists and Behavioral BiologistsBiological Theory 12 (1): 50-65. 2017.Some methodological adaptationists hijacked the term “exaptation,” and took an occasion of Stephen Jay Gould’s misspeaking as confirmation that it possessed an evolutionarily “designed” function and was a version of an adaptation, something it was decidedly not. Others provided a standard of evidence for exaptation that was inappropriate, and based on an adaptationist worldview. This article is intended to serve as both an analysis of and correction to those situations. Gould and Elisabeth Vrba’…Read more
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63Climate Modelling: Philosophical and Conceptual Issues (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.1. Introduction; Elisabeth A. Lloyd and Eric Winsberg.- Section 1: Confirmation and Evidence.- 2. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?; Naomi Oreskes.- 3. Satellite Data and Climate Models Redux.- 3a. Introduction to Chapter 3: Satellite Data and Climate Models; Elisabeth A. Lloyd.- Ch. 3b Fact Sheet to "Consistency of Modelled and Observed Temperature Trends in the Tropical Troposphere"; Benjamin D. Santer et al..- Ch. 3c Reprint of "Consistency of Modelle…Read more
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63Climate Change AttributionEpistemology and Philosophy of Science 56 (1): 185-201. 2019.A specific form of research question, for instance, “What is the probability of a certain class of weather events, given global climate change, relative to a world without?” could be answered with the use of FAR or RR (Fraction of Attributable Risk or Risk Ratio) as the most common approaches to discover and ascribe extreme weather events. Kevin Trenberth et al. (2015) and Theodore Shepherd (2016) have expressed doubts in their latest works whether it is the most appropriate explanatory tool or …Read more
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58The Semantic Approach and Its Application to Evolutionary TheoryPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988. 1988.In this talk I do three things. First, I review what I take to be fruitful applications of the semantic view of theory structure to evolutionary theory. Second, I list and correct three common misunderstandings about the semantic view. Third, I evaluate the weaknesses and strengths of Horan's paper in this symposium. Specifically, I argue that the criticisms leveled against the semantic view by Horan are inappropriate because they incorporate some basic misconceptions about the semantic view its…Read more
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57Criteria for Holobionts from Community GeneticsBiological Theory 14 (3): 151-170. 2019.We address the controversy in the literature concerning the definition of holobionts and the apparent constraints on their evolution using concepts from community population genetics. The genetics of holobionts, consisting of a host and diverse microbial symbionts, has been neglected in many discussions of the topic, and, where it has been discussed, a gene-centric, species-centric view, based in genomic conflict, has been predominant. Because coevolution takes place between traits or genes in t…Read more
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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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54The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary TheoryPrinceton University Press. 1994.Traditionally a scientific theory is viewed as based on universal laws of nature that serve as axioms for logical deduction. In analyzing the logical structure of evolutionary biology, Elisabeth Lloyd argues that the semantic account is more appropriate and powerful. This book will be of interest to biologists and philosophers alike.
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52Science and anti-science: Objectivity and its real enemiesIn Lynn Hankinson Nelson & Jack Nelson (eds.), Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, . pp. 217--259. 1996.
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34Elisabeth Lloyd Papers 1954-2017Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Archives and Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library SystemElisabeth Lloyd is an American philosopher of science whose work is centered in the field of philosophy of biology. The material in this archive documents her work in philosophy of biology. The materials extend over the whole of her career and include manuscript materials, working notes on articles and books in progress, professional correspondence, teaching materials, documents relating to work with professional organizations, talks given to professional audiences, as well as annotated books, m…Read more
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26Values as heuristics: a contextual empiricist account of assessing values scientificallySynthese 201 (6): 1-29. 2023.Feminist philosophers have discussed the prospects for assessing values empirically, particularly given the ongoing threat of sexism and other oppressive values influencing science and society. Some advocates of such tests now champion a “values as evidence” approach, and they criticize Helen Longino’s contextual empiricism for not holding values to the same level of empirical scrutiny as other claims. In this paper, we defend contextual empiricism by arguing that many of these criticisms are ba…Read more
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24The Generational Cycle of State Spaces and Adequate Genetical RepresentationPhilosophy of Science 75 (2): 140-156. 2008.Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve. We show that the claimed mathematical equivalence…Read more
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21Science, Politics, and EvolutionCambridge University Press. 2008.This book brings together important essays by one of the leading philosophers of science at work today. Elisabeth A. Lloyd examines several of the central topics in philosophy of biology, including the structure of evolutionary theory, units of selection, and evolutionary psychology, as well as the Science Wars, feminism and science, and sexuality and objectivity. Lloyd challenges the current evolutionary accounts of the female orgasm and analyses them for bias. She also offers an innovative ana…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 |