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2Chapter One. Philosophy and BiologyIn Philosophy of Biology, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-10. 2013.
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8Chapter Nine. InformationIn Philosophy of Biology, Princeton University Press. pp. 144-158. 2013.
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33Complex Life Cycles and the Evolutionary ProcessPhilosophy of Science 83 (5): 816-827. 2016.Problems raised by complex life cycles for standard summaries of evolutionary processes, and for concepts of individuality in biology, are described. I then outline a framework that can be used to compare life cycles. This framework treats reproduction as a combination of production and recurrence and organizes life cycles according to the distribution of steps in which multiplication, bottlenecks, and sex occur. I also discuss fitness and its measurement in complex life cycles and consider some…Read more
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15Covid heterodoxy in three layersMonash Bioethics Review 40 (1): 17-39. 2021.Lockdowns and related policies of behavioral and economic restriction introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are criticized, drawing on three sets of ideas and arguments that are organized in accordance with the likely degree of controversy associated with their guiding assumptions. The first set of arguments makes use of cost–benefit reasoning within a broadly utilitarian framework, emphasizing uncertainty, the role of worst-case scenarios, and the need to consider at least the medium …Read more
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98Conditions for Evolution by Natural SelectionJournal of Philosophy 104 (10): 489-516. 2007.Both biologists and philosophers often make use of simple verbal formulations of necessary and sufficient conditions for evolution by natural selection (ENS). Such summaries go back to Darwin's Origin of Species (especially the "Recapitulation"), but recent ones are more compact.1 Perhaps the most commonly cited formulation is due to Lewontin.2 These summaries tend to have three or four conditions, where the core requirement is a combination of variation, heredity, and fitness differences. The s…Read more
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26Chapter Four. Adaptation, Construction, FunctionIn Philosophy of Biology, Princeton University Press. pp. 50-65. 2013.
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1061Common Interest and Signaling Games: A Dynamic AnalysisPhilosophy of Science 83 (3): 371-392. 2016.We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a *cheap talk* regime, a…Read more
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9Chapter Eight. Evolution and Social BehaviorIn Philosophy of Biology, Princeton University Press. pp. 120-143. 2013.
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220A modern history theory of functionsNoûs 28 (3): 344-362. 1994.Biological functions are dispositions or effects a trait has which explain the recent maintenance of the trait under natural selection. This is the "modern history" approach to functions. The approach is historical because to ascribe a function is to make a claim about the past, but the relevant past is the recent past; modern history rather than ancient.
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120Agents and acacias: replies to Dennett, Sterelny, and QuellerBiology and Philosophy 26 (4): 501-515. 2011.The commentaries by Dennett, Sterelny, and Queller on Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (DPNS) are so constructive that they make it possible to extend and improve the book’s framework in several ways. My replies will focus on points of disagreement, and I will pick a small number of themes and develop them in detail. The three replies below are mostly self-contained, except that all my comments about genes, discussed by all three critics, are in the reply to Queller. Agential views of…Read more
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269Individualist and multi-level perspectives on selection in structured populationsBiology and Philosophy 17 (4): 477-517. 2002.Recent years have seen a renewed debate over the importance of groupselection, especially as it relates to the evolution of altruism. Onefeature of this debate has been disagreement over which kinds ofprocesses should be described in terms of selection at multiple levels,within and between groups. Adapting some earlier discussions, we presenta mathematical framework that can be used to explore the exactrelationships between evolutionary models that do, and those that donot, explicitly recognize …Read more
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57Group Selection, Pluralism, and the Evolution of Altruism (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3): 685-691. 2002.One version of pluralism was defended in a well-known paper by Sterelny and Kitcher. In this sense, pluralism is the view that any given selective process can be described at a variety of different levels in the biological hierarchy. On Sterelny and Kitcher’s view, one can explain giraffe necks in terms of competition among longer-necked and shorter-necked giraffes, and one can also explain them in terms of competition among the genes that lead to these differences in neck size. Although these d…Read more
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27Chapter Three. Evolution and Natural SelectionIn Philosophy of Biology, Princeton University Press. pp. 28-49. 2013.
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59On Price's Equation and Average FitnessBiology and Philosophy 17 (4): 551-565. 2002.A number of recent discussions have argued that George Price's equationfor representing evolutionary change is a powerful and illuminatingtool, especially in the context of debates about multiple levels ofselection. Our paper dissects Price's equation in detail, and comparesit to another statistical tool: the calculation and comparison ofaverage fitnesses. The relations between Price's equation and equationsfor evolutionary change using average fitness are closer than issometimes supposed. The t…Read more