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38Making Room for Faith: Does Science Exclude Religion?Midwest Studies in Philosophy 37 (1): 11-24. 2013.
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19Teleology and Biology: Some Thoughts on Ayala's Analysis of TeleologyHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 21 (2). 1999.
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128Science and values: My debt to Ernan McMullinZygon 47 (4): 666-685. 2012.Ernan McMullin's 1982 presidential address to the Philosophy of Science Association dealt with the issue of science and values, arguing that although scientists are rightfully wary of the infiltration of cultural and social values, their work is guided by “epistemic values,” such as the drive for consistency and predictive fertility. McMullin argued that it is the pursuit of these epistemic values that drives nonepistemic values from science. Using the case study of the fate of the nonepistemic …Read more
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176Response to the Commentary: Pro JudiceScience, Technology, and Human Values 7 (41): 19-23. 1982.
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1Atheism, Naturalism and Science: Three in One?In Peter Harrison (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, Cambridge University Press. 2010.
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209Methodological Naturalism Under AttackSouth African Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 44-60. 2005.Methodological naturalism is the assumption or working hypothesis that understanding nature (the physical world including humans and their thoughts and actions) can be understood in terms of unguided laws. There is no need to Suppose interventions (miracles) from outside. It does not commit one to metaphysical naturalism, the belief that there is nothing other than nature as we can see and observe it (in other words, that atheism is the right theology for the sound thinker). Recently the Intelli…Read more
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57The Philosophy of Human EvolutionCambridge University Press. 2012.1. Evolutionary biology -- 2. Human evolution -- 3. Real science? Good science? -- 4. Progress -- 5. Knowledge -- 6. Morality -- 7. Sex, orientation, and race -- 8. From eugenics to medicine.
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72The Morality of the GeneThe Monist 67 (2): 167-199. 1984.The relationship between biology, the science of organisms, and ethics, the philosophy of morality, has never been a particularly happy or fruitful one. Indeed, for much of this century, attempts to relate our animal nature to our sense of right and wrong have been taken as paradigms of how not to do moral philosophy. It has been argued that such systems of “evolutionary ethics” commit the most basic fallacies, and can serve only as dreadful warnings to those who would cross interdisciplinary di…Read more
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17Sociobiology, Sex, and Science (review)International Studies in Philosophy 29 (4): 121-122. 1997.
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12Nature, Human Nature, and Society (review)International Studies in Philosophy 18 (3): 63-65. 1986.
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18The Structure of Biological Theories (review)International Studies in Philosophy 25 (1): 109-110. 1993.
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218Making room for faith in an age of science: A response to David WisdoZygon 46 (3): 655-672. 2011.Abstract. I respond to the criticisms of David Wisdo of my position on the relationship between science and religion. I argue that although he gives a full and fair account of my position, he fails to grasp fully my use of the metaphorical basis of modern science in my argument that, because of its mechanistic commitment, there are some questions that science not only does not answer but that science does not even attempt to answer. Hence, my position stands and plays a crucial role in our under…Read more
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105Science and religion today (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70 (2): 167-177. 2011.Science and religion today Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9316-3 Authors Michael Ruse, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047
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29Are Pictures Really Necessary? The Case of Sewell Wright's "Adaptive Landscapes"PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1990. 1990.Philosophical analyses of science tend to ignore illustrations, implicitly regarding them as theoretically dispensible. If challenged, it is suggested that such neglect is justifiable, because the use of illustrations only leads to faulty reasoning, and thus is the mark of bad or inadequate science. I take as an example one of the most famous illustrations in the history of evolutionary biology, and argue that the philosophers' scorn is without foundation. I take my conclusions to be support for…Read more
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9Do the History of Science and the Philosophy of Science Have Anything to Say to Each Other?PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992. 1992.
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30Biological Science and Feminist ValuesPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984. 1984.Feminist writers argue that values permeate science. Using Ernan McMullin's discussion of values in science as a guide, the feminist position is accepted and an attempt is made to show why their position is one which should be noted by conventional philosophers of science.
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54Reduction in BiologyThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10 43-50. 2001.In this paper I shall discuss the concept of reduction—ontological, methodological, and epistemological or theoretical—in the biological sciences, with special emphasis on genetics and evolutionary biology. I suggest that perhaps, because the biological world has a form different from the non-biological world, it is appropriate to think of terms or metaphors different from those we would use when trying to understand the inorganic world. As such, the attempt to show that the biological is simply…Read more
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18arly in December of 1981, the federal courtroom in Little Rock, Arkansas, was packed. It was the first week of a trial brought on by the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the constitutionality of a state law passed earlier that year. The law mandated "balanced treatment," in the publicly supported schools, between evolutionary ideas and so-called Creation Science, better known as the early chapters of Genesis taken absolutely literally (Ruse 1988). By the end of the third day, the case…Read more
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50Julian Huxley on Darwinian evolution: A snapshot of a theory Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9499-8 Authors Michael Ruse, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32303, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
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55David Hull: A memoirBiology and Philosophy 25 (5): 739-747. 2010.David Hull: a memoir Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10539-010-9236-0 Authors Michael Ruse, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867.
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38Evolution, Morality, and the Meaning of Life Jeffrie G. Murphy Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982. Pp. 158, index. $14.95 (review)Dialogue 23 (3): 527-530. 1984.
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