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12Could religion be a group-level adaptation of Homo sapiens?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34 (4): 699-705. 2003.
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12EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009 (edited book)Springer. 2011.This is a collection of high-quality research papers in the philosophy of science, deriving from papers presented at the second meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association in Amsterdam, October 2009.
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1210. Simulated Experiments: Methodology for a Virtual World Simulated Experiments: Methodology for a Virtual World (pp. 105-125) (review)Philosophy of Science 70 (1): 22-26. 2003.In his “A New Program for Philosophy of Science?”, Ronald Giere expresses qualms regarding the critical and political projects I advocate for philosophy of science—that the critical project assumes an underdetermination absent from actual science, and the political project takes us outside the professional pursuit of philosophy of science. In reply I contend that the underdetermination the critical project assumes does occur in actual science, and I provide a variety of examples to support this.…Read more
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10Evolution and Rationality: Decisions, Co-Operation and Strategic Behaviour (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2012.This volume explores from multiple perspectives the subtle and interesting relationship between the theory of rational choice and Darwinian evolution. In rational choice theory, agents are assumed to make choices that maximize their utility; in evolution, natural selection 'chooses' between phenotypes according to the criterion of fitness maximization. So there is a parallel between utility in rational choice theory and fitness in Darwinian theory. This conceptual link between fitness and utilit…Read more
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8Scepticism and its SourcesPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (3): 610-632. 2003.A number of recent philosophers, including Michael Williams, Barry Stroud and Donald Davidson, have argued that scepticism about the external world stems from the founda‐tionalist assumption that sensory experience supplies the data for our beliefs about the world. In order to assess this thesis, I offer a brief characterisation of the logical form of sceptical arguments. I suggest that sceptical arguments rely on the idea that many of our beliefs about the world are‘underdetermined’by the evide…Read more
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8Review of From Darwin to Derrida by David Haig: MIT Press 2020. ISBN 9780262043786 (review)Acta Biotheoretica 69 (3): 477-481. 2020.
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7The Units and Levels of SelectionIn Sahorta Sarkar & Anya Plutynski (eds.), Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, Blackwell. 2008.This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Historical Remarks The Gene's Eye View of Evolution Group Selection and Kin Selection Species Selection and Macroevolution Multilevel Selection Theory and the Major Transitions in Evolution Conclusion References Further Reading.
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2An introduction to the symposium on rational choice and philosophyEconomics and Philosophy 32 (2): 171-173. 2016.This symposium contains a selection of the papers that were presented at a conference we organized on Rational Choice and Philosophy that was held at Vanderbilt University on 16 and 17 May 2014. The aim of the conference was to provide an inter-disciplinary forum for philosophical work that uses ideas and tools from rational choice theory, understood broadly to include decision theory, game theory and social choice theory.
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2Causation in BiologyIn Helen Beebee, Peter Menzies & Christopher Hitchcock (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Causation, Oxford University Press. pp. 707--725. 2009.
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2DarwinIn W. H. Newton‐Smith (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, Blackwell. 2017.Discoverer of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and thus the founder of modern evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin is responsible for one of the most fundamental and far‐reaching contributions to the modern scientific world view. Born in 1809 in Shrewsbury into a wealthy Victorian family, Darwin was educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. Though his formal education was of little interest to him ‐ “my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned”…Read more
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2Biological AltruismStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Plato. Stanford. Edu/Entries/Altruism-Biological. forthcoming.
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1Proceedings of the Second Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association. (edited book)Springer. 2012.
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1Proceedings of EPSA09 (edited book)Springer. 2012.This is a collection of high-quality research papers in the philosophy of science, deriving from papers presented at the second meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association in Amsterdam, October 2009.
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Species and organismsIn Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. 2013.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Probability |