Jean Gayon

The first objective of the paper is to propose a classification and characterize the major approaches to the modes of cultural evolution: (1) Research programs on the origins of the cultural capacity of the human species. (2) Description and explanation of cultural change with the help of concepts or models inspired by the schemes of population genetics. (3) Research on parallel evolution of genes and culture. (4) Narrow coupling between biological evolution and cultural evolution, or the “gene-culture coevolution paradigm.” These four modes of cultural evolution make sense at a different time-scale (respectively: more than 100 000 years; less than 100 years; greater than 1000 years; less than 1000 years). The second section of the paper provides an evaluation of the various programs, from various points of view: methodological, ethical, and epistemological.

Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards is Sober’s book that comes closest to history of science. Some reviews have expressed reservations about Sober’s inclination to subordinate historical accuracy to analytical clarity, and to contemporary discussions . My comments will be devoted to the kind of relationship that Sober entertains with history of science. I do not think that the author’s interest in history is superficial and instrumental.In the first section, I try to locate Sober’s book within ‘&HPS’ , a recent initiative that gathers a growing number of people willing to promote a new regime of interaction between philosophy and history of science. I will suggest that Sober offers an interesting way of developing this approach. The more critical second section is devoted to Sober’s first chapter, bearing on the relationship between the two main tenets of Darwin’s argument in the Origin—descent with modif ..

In Darwinism's Struggle for Survival Jean Gayon offers a philosophical interpretation of the history of theoretical Darwinism. He begins by examining the different forms taken by the hypothesis of natural selection in the nineteenth century and the major difficulties which it encountered, particularly with regard to its compatibility with the theory of heredity. He then shows how these difficulties were overcome during the seventy years which followed the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, and he concludes by analysing the major features of the genetic theory of natural selection, as it developed from 1920 to 1960. This rich and wide-ranging study will appeal to philosophers and historians of science and to evolutionary biologists

Dans la théorie contemporaine de l’évolution, trois sens classiques de la notion de hasard interviennent : la notion ordinaire de chance, la notion probabiliste de l’aléatoire, et la notion épistémologique de contingence relativement à un système théorique. Ces trois notions suffisent à définir le statut du hasard aux principaux niveaux du processus évolutif où l’on invoque communément des effets fortuits : mutations, dérive génétique, révolutions génétiques, changements écologiques, macroévolution. On se demande enfin si les divers sens du hasard rencontrés dans cette étude peuvent être ramenés à l’unité, et s’ils renvoient à un hasard subjectif ou à un hasard objectif. In the contemporary theory of evolution, three classical meanings of the notion of chance come into play : the ordinary meaning of chance, the probabilistic notion of randomness, and the epistemological notion of contingency with reference to a theoretical system. These three notions are sufficient in order to define the status of chance on the principal levels of the evolutive process where fortuitous effects are commonly invoked : mutations, genetic deviations, genetic revolutions, ecological changes, macroevolution. The question is raised, finally, whether the diverse meanings of chance considered in the present study may be brought to one, and whether they refer to a subjective form of chance or to an objective chance.

Omniprésente dans l'ensemble des sciences de la vie, la catégorie de fonction a les allures d'un scandale épistémologique : attribuer une fonction à une structure ou à un processus biologique, c'est en effet suggérer qu'on l'explique par ses effets. Cet ouvrage, sans précédent en langue française examine les débats philosophiques contemporains sur les fonctions depuis une trentaine d'années, et propose de nouvelles voies d'analyse. Il confronte ces débats à l'usage de la notion de fonction dans un large spectre de disciplines biologiques, psychologiques et médicales. Il soulève aussi la question de savoir si cette notion, aussi ancienne dans l'histoire des techniques que dans celle des sciences de la vie, y a le même sens.

The article examines two cases of adoption of evolutionary ways of thinking by modern economists: Nelson and Winter’s (Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, 1982), and evolutionary game theory (1990s and after). In both cases, the authors explicitly refer to natural selection in an economic context. I show that natural selection is taken in two different senses, which correspond to two general conceptions of the principle of natural selection, one of which contains reproduction and heredity as key elements, whereas the other does not.