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21The Place of Artificial Selection in Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution through Natural SelectionIn Gregory J. Morgan (ed.), Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein, Oxford University Press. pp. 203. 2011.
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28Book Review:Evolution and Creation Ernan McMullin (review)Philosophy of Science 53 (4): 608-. 1986.
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32Frederick Burkhardt;, James A. Secord;, Janet Browne;, Samantha Evans;, Shelley Innes;, Alison M. Pearn;, Paul White . The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Volume 19: 1871. xli + 1,062 pp., illus., table, bibl., index. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. £90 (review)Isis 104 (3): 622-624. 2013.
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10Belief in God in a Darwinian ageIn J. Hodges & Gregory Radick (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, Cambridge University Press. pp. 333. 2003.
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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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19Reduction in GeneticsPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1974. 1974.
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10Morality as a Biological Phenomenon: The Presuppositions of Sociobiological Research by Gunther S. Stent (review)Isis 73 (4): 579-579. 1982.
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111Darwinism and determinismZygon 22 (4): 419-442. 1987.Does Darwinism generally, and human sociobiology in particular, lead to an unwarranted (and possibly socially offensive) determinism? I argue that one must separate out different senses of determinism, and that once one has done this, a Darwinian approach to human nature can be seen to shed important light on our intuitions about free will, constraint, and control.
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6The Development of Darwin's Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, and Natural Selection, 1838-1859. Dov Ospovat (review)Isis 74 (2): 292-293. 1983.
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63Robert Boyle and the Machine MetaphorZygon 37 (3): 581-596. 2002.The seventeenth–century chemist and philosopher Robert Boyle argued that the world is like a clockwork machine. This led to the problems of the place of a Creator and of how one can explain the directed, “final–cause” nature of organisms. Boyle thought that he could wrap everything up in one neat package, with a clear place for a designing God, but of course the coming of Darwinism casts doubt on this. Nevertheless, Boyle's thinking does have some very interesting implications for the way in whi…Read more
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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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27Charles Lyell and the Philosophers of ScienceBritish Journal for the History of Science 9 (2): 121-131. 1976.Two of the most influential evaluations of Charles Lyell's geological ideas were those of the philosophers of science, John F. W. Herschel and William Whewell. In this paper I shall argue that the great difference between these evaluations—whereas Herschel was fundamentally sympathetic to Lyell's geologizing, Whewell was fundamentally opposed—is a function of the fact that Herschel was an empiricist and Whewell a rationalist. For convenience, I shall structure the discussion around the three key…Read more
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5Sociobiology: Sound Science or Muddled Metaphysics?PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1976. 1976.
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23Evolutionary Biology and Cultural Values: Is It Irremediably Corrupt?Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 20 (sup1): 43-68. 1994.In recent years, philosophers have come to realize that the relationship between science and values raises questions which are both important and not readily answered. It is true that the major figures in that tradition known as ‘logical empiricism’ appreciated that science always exceeds its empirical grasp and that it is necessary for scientists to be guided and constrained by so-called ‘epistemic values,’ these being values (in the words of one supporter) ‘presumed to promote the truth-like c…Read more
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53Intelligent design theory and its contextThink 4 (11): 7-16. 2005.Michael Ruse introduces the debate over intelligent design creationism
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3Darwin versus the Liberals: The third assault of the intelligent designersStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 89-92. 2014.
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4The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. Roy Bhaskar (review)Isis 72 (3): 493-495. 1981.
Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Biology |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
Philosophy of Biology |