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4Précis de Philosophie de la biologie [Handbook Philosophy of Biology] (edited book)Vuibert Press. 2014.La philosophie de la biologie est un domaine extrêmement actif de la recherche dans la tradition philosophique anglo-saxonne. Elle réunit philosophes et biologistes autour de la question de la définition des concepts fondamentaux : gène, cellule, organisme, espèce, développement, évolution, adaptation, etc. Ce livre, qui rassemble les contributions d’une trentaine de spécialistes français et étrangers, présente en 24 chapitres l’état de la recherche actuelle dans tous les principaux domaines de …Read more
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71Fitness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web 17 (8): 457-473. 2011.
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77Rationalité et néo-darwinisme: l'origine de la pensée selon de SousaDialogue 46 (1): 155-163. 2007.
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What is a symbiotic superindividual and how do you measure its fitness?In Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. 2013.
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151ÉpistémologieIn J. Prud’Homme, P. Doray & F. Bouchard (eds.), Sciences, technologies et sociétés de A à Z, Les Presses De L'université De Montréal. pp. 85-87. 2015.--
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10International audience.
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35International audience.
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54Proceedings of the Pittsburgh Workshop in History and Philosophy of Biology, Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, March 23-24 2001 Session 4: Evolutionary Indeterminism.
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522Functional diversity: An epistemic roadmapBioScience 10 (69): 800-811. 2019.Functional diversity holds the promise of understanding ecosystems in ways unattainable by taxonomic diversity studies. Underlying this promise is the intuition that investigating the diversity of what organisms actually do—i.e. their functional traits—within ecosystems will generate more reliable insights into the ways these ecosystems behave, compared to considering only species diversity. But this promise also rests on several conceptual and methodological—i.e. epistemic—assumptions that cut …Read more
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FitnessIn Sahotra Sarkar & Jessica Pfeifer (eds.), The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Routledge. pp. 310--315. 2005.
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301Matthen and Ariew’s Obituary for Fitness: Reports of its Death have been Greatly Exaggerated (review)Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3): 343-353. 2005.Philosophers of biology have been absorbed by the problem of defining evolutionary fitness since Darwin made it central to biological explanation. The apparent problem is obvious. Define fitness as some biologists implicitly do, in terms of actual survival and reproduction, and the principle of natural selection turns into an empty tautology: those organisms which survive and reproduce in larger numbers, survive and reproduce in larger numbers. Accordingly, many writers have sought to provide a …Read more
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217Darwinism without populations: a more inclusive understanding of the “Survival of the Fittest”Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (1): 106-114. 2011.Following Wallace’s suggestion, Darwin framed his theory using Spencer’s expression “survival of the fittest”. Since then, fitness occupies a significant place in the conventional understanding of Darwinism, even though the explicit meaning of the term ‘fitness’ is rarely stated. In this paper I examine some of the different roles that fitness has played in the development of the theory. Whereas the meaning of fitness was originally understood in ecological terms, it took a statistical turn in t…Read more
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108A persistence enhancing propensity account of ecological function to explain ecosystem evolutionSynthese 194 (4). 2017.We argue that ecology in general and biodiversity and ecosystem function research in particular need an understanding of functions which is both ahistorical and evolutionarily grounded. A natural candidate in this context is Bigelow and Pargetter’s evolutionary forward-looking account which, like the causal role account, assigns functions to parts of integrated systems regardless of their past history, but supplements this with an evolutionary dimension that relates functions to their bearers’ a…Read more
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337Fitness, probability and the principles of natural selectionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (4): 693-712. 2004.We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness as a pairwise comparison between individuals taken…Read more
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108The Roles of Institutional Trust and Distrust in Grounding Rational Deference to Scientific ExpertisePerspectives on Science 24 (5): 582-608. 2016.Given the complexity of most phenomena, we have to delegate much epistemic work to other knowers and we must find reasons for relying on these specific knowers and not others. In our societies, these other knowers are often called experts and we rely on their epistemic authority more and more. For many complex phenomena such as climate change, genetically modified crops, and immunization, the experts that are called upon are scientific experts. For that reason, finding good reasons and justifica…Read more
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24Elisabeth A. Lloyd. Science, Politics, and Evolution. 301 pp., index. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. $85 (review)Isis 100 (2): 444-445. 2009.
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27From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality (edited book)MIT Press. 2013.Our intuitive assumption that only organisms are the real individuals in the natural world is at odds with developments in cell biology, ecology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Although organisms have served for centuries as nature’s paradigmatic individuals, science suggests that organisms are only one of the many ways in which the natural world could be organized. When living beings work together—as in ant colonies, beehives, and bacteria-metazoan symbiosis—new collective in…Read more
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50How ecosystem evolution strengthens the case for functional pluralismIn Philippe Huneman (ed.), Functions: selection and mechanisms, Springer. pp. 83--95. 2013.
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147Causal processes, fitness, and the differential persistence of lineagesPhilosophy of Science 75 (5): 560-570. 2008.Ecological fitness has been suggested to provide a unifying definition of fitness. However, a metric for this notion of fitness was in most cases unavailable except by proxy with differential reproductive success. In this article, I show how differential persistence of lineages can be used as a way to assess ecological fitness. This view is inspired by a better understanding of the evolution of some clonal plants, colonial organisms, and ecosystems. Differential persistence shows the limitation …Read more
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94Understanding colonial traits using symbiosis research and ecosystem ecologyBiological Theory 4 (3): 240-246. 2009.E. O. Wilson (1974: 54) describes the problem that social organisms pose: “On what bases do we distinguish the extremely modified members of an invertebrate colony from the organs of a metazoan animal?” This framing of the issue has inspired many to look more closely at how groups of organisms form and behave as emergent individuals. The possible existence of “superorganisms” test our best intuitions about what can count and act as genuine biological individuals and how we should study them. As …Read more
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112Ecosystem Evolution is About Variation and Persistence, not Populations and ReproductionBiological Theory 9 (4): 382-391. 2014.Building upon a non-standard understanding of evolutionary process focusing on variation and persistence, I will argue that communities and ecosystems can evolve by natural selection as emergent individuals. Evolutionary biology has relied ever increasingly on the modeling of population dynamics. Most have taken for granted that we all agree on what is a population. Recent work has reexamined this perceived consensus. I will argue that there are good reasons to restrict the term “population” to …Read more
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49Our intuitive assumption that only organisms are the real individuals in the natural world is at odds with developments in cell biology, ecology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and other fields. Although organisms have served for centuries as nature's paradigmatic individuals, science suggests that organisms are only one of the many ways in which the natural world could be organized. When living beings work together--as in ant colonies, beehives, and bacteria-metazoan symbiosis--new collective …Read more
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101Symbiosis, lateral function transfer and the (many) saplings of lifeBiology and Philosophy 25 (4): 623-641. 2010.One of intuitions driving the acceptance of a neat structured tree of life is the assumption that organisms and the lineages they form have somewhat stable spatial and temporal boundaries. The phenomenon of symbiosis shows us that such ‘fixist’ assumptions does not correspond to how the natural world actually works. The implications of lateral gene transfer (LGT) have been discussed elsewhere; I wish to stress a related point. I will focus on lateral function transfer (LFT) and will argue, using…Read more
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56What Is a Symbiotic Superindividual and How Do You Measure Its Fitness?In Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. pp. 243. 2013.
Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |