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64ChINs, swarms, and variational modalities: concepts in the service of an evolutionary research program: Günter P. Wagner: Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2014. 496 pp, $60.00, £41.95 . ISBN 978-0-691-15646-0Biology and Philosophy 30 (6): 873-888. 2015.Günter Wagner’s Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation collects and synthesizes a vast array of empirical data, theoretical models, and conceptual analysis to set out a progressive research program with a central theoretical commitment: the genetic theory of homology. This research program diverges from standard approaches in evolutionary biology, provides sharpened contours to explanations of the origin of novelty, and expands the conceptual repertoire of evolutionary developmental biolog…Read more
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39Reflections on the Middle Stages of EvoDevo’s OntogenyBiological Theory 1 (1): 94-97. 2006.Evolutionary developmental biology (or developmental evolution) is in the middle stages of its “development.” Its early ontogeny cannot be traced back to fertilization but pivotal developmental events included Gould’s (1977) treatment of heterochrony, Riedl’s (1978) analysis of “burden”, the Dahlem conference of 1981, a British Society of Developmental Biologists Symposium, as well as books that incorporated developmental genetics into older comparative themes. A major inductive process began wi…Read more
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48The return of the embryoBiology and Philosophy 20 (2-3): 567-584. 2005.Review by Alan Love of "Keywords & Concepts in Evolutionary Developmental Biology." Hall, Brian K. and Wendy M. Olson (Eds), Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Hb. 476+xvi pp.
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32ReductionIn Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 460-484. 2016.Reduction and reductionism have been central philosophical topics in analytic philosophy of science for more than six decades. Together they encompass a diversity of issues from metaphysics and epistemology. This article provides an introduction to the topic that illuminates how contemporary epistemological discussions took their shape historically and limns the contours of concrete cases of reduction in specific natural sciences. The unity of science and the impulse to accomplish compositional …Read more
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10Revolutionary evo-devo? (review)Journal of the History of Biology 40. 2007.Essay review of David Arnold, "The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800-1856" (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), xiv + 298 pp., illus.
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16Morphological and paleontological perspectives for a history of evo-devoIn M. Laubichler & J. Maienschein (eds.), From Embryology to Evo-Devo: A History of Developmental Evolution, Mit Press. 2007.Exploring history pertinent to evolutionary developmental biology (hereafter, Evo-devo) is an exciting prospect given its current status as a cutting-edge field of research. The first and obvious question concerns where to begin searching for materials and sources. Since this new discipline adopts a moniker that intentionally juxtaposes ‘evolution’ and development’, individuals, disciplines, and institutional contexts relevant to the history of evolutionary studies and investigations of ontogeny…Read more
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114Philosophical Dimensions of IndividualityIn Scott Lidgard & Lynn K. Nyhart (eds.), Biological Individuality: Integrating Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Perspectives, University of Chicago Press. pp. 318-348. 2017.Although natural philosophers have long been interested in individuality, it has been of interest to contemporary philosophers of biology because of its role in different aspects of evolutionary biology. These debates include whether species are individuals or classes, what counts as a unit of selection, and how transitions in individuality occur evolutionarily. Philosophical analyses are often conducted in terms of metaphysics (“what is an individual?”), rather than epistemology (“how can and d…Read more
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7Gene expression patterns in a novel animal appendage: The sea urchin pluteus armEvolution & Development 9. 2007.The larval arms of echinoid plutei are used for locomotion and feeding. They are composed of internal calcite skeletal rods covered by an ectoderm layer bearing a ciliary band. Skeletogenesis includes an autonomous molecular differentiation program in primary mesenchyme cells (PMCs), initiated when PMCs leave the vegetal plate for the blastocoel, and a patterning of the differentiated skeletal units that requires molecular cues from the overlaying ectoderm. The arms represent a larval feature th…Read more
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116Evolutionary morphology, innovation, and the synthesis of evolutionary and developmental biologyBiology and Philosophy 18 (2): 309-345. 2003.One foundational question in contemporarybiology is how to `rejoin evolution anddevelopment. The emerging research program(evolutionary developmental biology or`evo-devo) requires a meshing of disciplines,concepts, and explanations that have beendeveloped largely in independence over the pastcentury. In the attempt to comprehend thepresent separation between evolution anddevelopment much attention has been paid to thesplit between genetics and embryology in theearly part of the 20th century with…Read more
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14Darwin’s functional reasoning and homologyIn M. Wheeler (ed.), 150 Years of Evolution: Darwin’s Impact on Contemporary Thought & Culture, Sdsu Press. 2011.Scientists exhibit different styles in their reasoning about the natural world (e.g., experimental, historical, or statistical). These styles have been characterized, categorized, and combined in many ways throughout the history of science.
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25Leibniz through the lens of life science (review)Journal of the History of Biology 45 (2): 367-371. 2012.A Review of Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life by Justin E.H. Smith, [2011]
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14Teaching evolutionary developmental biology: concepts, problems, and controversyIn K. Kampourakis (ed.), Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators, Springer. pp. 323-341. 2013.Although sciences are often conceptualized in terms of theory confirmation and hypothesis testing, an equally important dimension of scientific reasoning is the structure of problems that guide inquiry. This problem structure is evident in several concepts central to evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo)—constraints, modularity, evolvability, and novelty. Because problems play an important role in biological practice, they should be included in biological pedagogy, especially when treati…Read more
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305Evolvability, plausibility, and possibility (review)BioScience 56. 2006.Judgments of plausibility involve appearance of the truth or reasonableness, which is always a function of background knowledge. What anyone will countenance is conditioned by what they already know (or think they know). Marc Kirschner (professor of systems biology at Harvard) and John Gerhart (professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California—Berkeley) aim to show that molecular, cellular, and developmental processes relevant to the generation of phenotypic variation in an…Read more
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46Taking development seriously: Who, what, when, where, why, how? (review)Biology and Philosophy 21 (4): 575-589. 2006.
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36Interdisciplinary lessons for the teaching of biology from the practice of Evo-devoScience & Education 22 (2). 2013.Evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo) is a vibrant area of contemporary life science that should be (and is) increasingly incorporated into teaching curricula. Although the inclusion of this content is important for biological pedagogy at multiple levels of instruction, there are also philosophical lessons that can be drawn from the scientific practices found in Evo-devo. One feature of particular significance is the interdisciplinary nature of Evo-devo investigations and their resulting…Read more
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28Lenny Moss: What Genes Can’t Do (review)Philosophy of Science 73 (2): 247-250. 2006.Philosophy of Science, 73 (April 2006) pp. 247–257. 0031-8248/2006/7302-0007$10.00 Copyright 2006 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. 247 BOOK REVIEWS Lenny Moss, What Genes Can’t Do . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2004), 256 pp., $21.00 (paper). Many philosophers of science will have encountered the core distinction between two different gene concepts found in What Genes Can’t Do . Moss argues that contemporary uses of the term ‘gene’ that denote an infor- ma…Read more
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22Explaining the origins of multicellularity: between evolutionary dynamics and developmental mechanismsIn K. J. Niklas & S. A. Newman (eds.), Multicellularity: Origins and Evolution, Mit Press. 2016.Overview The evolution of multicellularity raises questions regarding genomic and developmental commonalities and discordances, selective advantages and disadvantages, physical determinants of development, and the origins of morphological novelties. It also represents a change in the definition of individuality, because a new organism emerges from interactions among single cells. This volume considers these and other questions, with contributions that explore the origins and consequences of the…Read more
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43Dimensions of integration in interdisciplinary explanations of the origin of evolutionary noveltyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4): 537-550. 2013.Many philosophers of biology have embraced a version of pluralism in response to the failure of theory reduction but overlook how concepts, methods, and explanatory resources are in fact coordinated, such as in interdisciplinary research where the aim is to integrate different strands into an articulated whole. This is observable for the origin of evolutionary novelty—a complex problem that requires a synthesis of intellectual resources from different fields to arrive at robust answers to multip…Read more
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14Developing a rhetorical account of explanation (review)Choice 52 (8): 4168. 2015.Book review of "The Nature of Scientific Thinking: on Interpretation, Explanation and Understanding" by J. Faye. The nature of scientific explanation is a central topic of interest to philosophers but the literature has metamorphosed from a coherent body of key papers and examples into narrow and specialized discussions in different scientific disciplines.
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54Proceedings of the Pittsburgh Workshop in History and Philosophy of Biology, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, March 23-24 2001 Session 4: Evolutionary Indeterminism.
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58Alan C. LoveDarwinian calisthenicsAn athlete engages in calisthenics as part of basic training and as a preliminary to more advanced or intense activity. Whether it is stretching, lunges, crunches, or push-ups, routine calisthenics provide a baseline of strength and flexibility that prevent a variety of injuries that might otherwise be incurred. Peter Bowler has spent 40 years doing Darwinian calisthenics, researching and writing on the development of evolutionary ideas with special attention to…Read more
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8Fostering inquiry in nonlaboratory settingsJournal of College Science Teaching 34 39-43. 2004.Inquiry is an important learning strategy, even for students who cannot or do not perform actual experiments. The authors describe two activities, other than experimentation, that they used in introductory biology learning groups to emphasize inquiry abilities. They also provide recommendations for creating additional inquiry activities.
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87Rethinking the structure of evolutionary theory for an extended synthesisIn M. Pigliucci & G. Müller (eds.), Evolution—The Extended Synthesis, Mit Press. 2010.This chapter describes the theoretical implications of Extended Synthesis and addresses the methodological options available for determining aspects of theoretical structure. It uses a “bottom-up” approach focused on evolutionary theory in particular, as opposed to a “top-down” strategy that attempts to characterize the structure of all scientific theories. The chapter shows that there are multiple stable components contained within a broad representation of evolutionary theory. It suggests that…Read more
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31Marine invertebrates, model organisms, and the modern synthesis: epistemic values, evo-devo, and exclusionTheory in Biosciences 128. 2009.A central reason that undergirds the significance of evo-devo is the claim that development was left out of the Modern synthesis. This claim turns out to be quite complicated, both in terms of whether development was genuinely excluded and how to understand the different kinds of embryological research that might have contributed. The present paper reevaluates this central claim by focusing on the practice of model organism choice. Through a survey of examples utilized in the literature of the M…Read more
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35Philosophical Lessons from Scientific Biography (review)Philosophy of Science 78 (4): 696-701. 2011.Essay Review of The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought by Robert J. Richards [2009].
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66Hierarchy, causation and explanation: ubiquity, locality, and pluralismInterface Focus 2 (1). 2012.The ubiquity of top-down causal explanations within and across the sciences is prima facie evidence for the existence of top-down causation. Much debate has been focused on whether top-down causation is coherent or in conflict with reductionism. Less attention has been given to the question of whether these representations of hierarchical relations pick out a single, common hierarchy. A negative answer to this question undermines a commonplace view that the world is divided into stratified ‘leve…Read more
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103Theory is as Theory Does: Scientific Practice and Theory Structure in BiologyBiological Theory 7 (4). 2013.Using the context of controversies surrounding evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo) and the possibility of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, I provide an account of theory structure as idealized theory presentations that are always incomplete (partial) and shaped by their conceptual content (material rather than formal organization). These two characteristics are salient because the goals that organize and regulate scientific practice, including the activity of using a theory, are hete…Read more
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12Darwin’s ‘imaginary illustrations’: creatively teaching evolutionary concepts and the nature of scienceThe American Biology Teacher 72. 2010.An overlooked feature of Darwin’s work is his use of “imaginary illustrations” to show that natural selection is competent to produce adaptive, evolutionary change. When set in the context of Darwin’s methodology, these thought
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