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Book notices-thinking about evolution. Historical, philosophical and political perspectivesHistory and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 23 (2): 327. 2001.
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166When What Had to Happen Was Not Bound to Happen: History, Chance, Narrative, EvolutionJournal of the Philosophy of History 5 (3): 471-495. 2011.What is it for history to matter? Stephen Gould argued that unpredictability is part of the answer. For example, the “fact“ that repeated replays of the history of life would end differently every time is a sign that history matters to the course of evolution. But there is a problem here: if a particular point in the past leaves open alternative possible futures, then in what sense does that point in the past matter with regard to which of the outcomes occurs? We argue that unpredictability is c…Read more
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25Pluralism and PanselectionismPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984. 1984.During the 1950s and 60s, evolutionary biologists began to attribute a greater and greater role to natural selection, and correspondingly less and less a role to alternative evolutionary agents. Empirical grounds cited in support of the change in attitude consisted primarily of selectionist reinterpretations of evolutionary changes originally attributed to other evolutionary agents. In order to distinguish the respects in which the increased emphasis on natural selection was justified and unjust…Read more
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The Wright Stuff: William Provine, "Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology" (review)Biology and Philosophy 3 (2): 275. 1988.
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Darwin's cyclopean architectIn R. Paul Thompson & Denis Walsh (eds.), Evolutionary biology: conceptual, ethical, and religious issues, Cambridge University Press. 2014.
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358Chance and natural selectionPhilosophy of Science 51 (2): 183-211. 1984.Among the liveliest disputes in evolutionary biology today are disputes concerning the role of chance in evolution--more specifically, disputes concerning the relative evolutionary importance of natural selection vs. so-called "random drift". The following discussion is an attempt to sort out some of the broad issues involved in those disputes. In the first half of this paper, I try to explain the differences between evolution by natural selection and evolution by random drift. On some common co…Read more
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230The propensity interpretation of fitnessPhilosophy of Science 46 (2): 263-286. 1979.The concept of "fitness" is a notion of central importance to evolutionary theory. Yet the interpretation of this concept and its role in explanations of evolutionary phenomena have remained obscure. We provide a propensity interpretation of fitness, which we argue captures the intended reference of this term as it is used by evolutionary theorists. Using the propensity interpretation of fitness, we provide a Hempelian reconstruction of explanations of evolutionary phenomena, and we show why cha…Read more
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96Chance Variation: Darwin on OrchidsPhilosophy of Science 73 (5): 629-641. 2006.How, according to Darwin, does chance variation affect evolutionary outcomes? In his 1866 book, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, Darwin developed an argument that played an important role in his overall case for evolution by natural selection, as articulated in later editions of the Origin. This argument also figured significantly in Darwin's reflections on the theological dimensions of evolution by natural selection.
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35Introduction: Between ecology and evolutionary biologyJournal of the History of Biology 19 (2): 169-180. 1986.
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97The Propensity Interpretation of ‘Fitness‘—No Interpretation is No SubstitutePhilosophy of Science 51 (2): 342-347. 1984.
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17Weighing the risks: Stalemate in the classical/balance controversyJournal of the History of Biology 20 (3): 289-319. 1987.The classical/balance controversy continued along these lines throughout the first half of the sixties. Then, at about the same time that the classical position lost its leading advocate, the balance position received striking new support from Harry Harris, and independently from Dobzhansky's former student Lewontin, and Lewontin's research partner, Jack Hubby.80 These developments served more to reorient the controversy than to end it — and the resulting “neoclassical”/balance controversy is di…Read more
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94Why do biologists argue like they do?Philosophy of Science 64 (4): 443. 1997."Theoretical pluralism" obtains when there are good evidential reasons for accommodating multiple theories of the same domain. Issues of "relative significance" often arise in connection with the investigation of such domains. In this paper, I describe and give examples of theoretical pluralism and relative significance issues. Then I explain why theoretical pluralism so often obtains in biology--and why issues of relative significance arise--in terms of evolutionary contingencies and the paucit…Read more
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21What's in a word? Coming to terms in the Darwinian revolutionJournal of the History of Biology 15 (2). 1982.
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113The proximate/ultimate distinction in the multiple careers of Ernst MayrBiology and Philosophy 9 (3): 333-356. 1994.Ernst Mayr''s distinction between ultimate and proximate causes is justly considered a major contribution to philosophy of biology. But how did Mayr come to this philosophical distinction, and what role did it play in his earlier scientific work? I address these issues by dividing Mayr''s work into three careers or phases: 1) Mayr the naturalist/researcher, 2) Mayr the representative of and spokesman for evolutionary biology and systematics, and more recently 3) Mayr the historian and philosophe…Read more
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38Scientific collaboration, internationalism, and diplomacy: The case of the atomic bomb casualty commissionJournal of the History of Biology 26 (2): 205-231. 1993.
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103Optimal-design models and the strategy of model building in evolutionary biologyPhilosophy of Science 47 (4): 532-561. 1980.The prevalence of optimality models in the literature of evolutionary biology is testimony to their popularity and importance. Evolutionary biologist R. C. Lewontin, whose criticisms of optimality models are considered here, reflects that "optimality arguments have become extremely popular in the last fifteen years, and at present represent the dominant mode of thought." Although optimality models have received little attention in the philosophical literature, these models are very interesting f…Read more
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292Natural selection and historyBiology and Philosophy 24 (2): 231-246. 2009.In “Spandrels,” Gould and Lewontin criticized what they took to be an all-too-common conviction, namely, that adaptation to current environments determines organic form. They stressed instead the importance of history. In this paper, we elaborate upon their concerns by appealing to other writings in which those issues are treated in greater detail. Gould and Lewontin’s combined emphasis on history was three-fold. First, evolution by natural selection does not start from scratch, but always refas…Read more
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35Ecology and evolutionary biology in the war and postwar years: Questions and commentsJournal of the History of Biology 21 (2): 245-263. 1988.Of all the scientists discussed by Mitman, Keller, and Taylor, Odum stands out most as the technocrat, the social engineer. But less obvious candidates, like Allee, also fancied themselves in this capacity: “Our task as biologists and as citizens of a civilized country, is a practical engineering job.” Allee had in mind the establishment of an international cooperative order based on his biological principles. He apparently did not recognize the extent to which his principles were themselves an …Read more
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86Evolutionary anti-reductionism: Historical reflections (review)Biology and Philosophy 5 (2): 199-210. 1990.
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15A History of Embryology. T. J. Horder, J. A. Witkowski, C. C. Wylie (review)Philosophy of Science 56 (1): 174-177. 1989.
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48The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday LifeCambridge University Press. 1990.The Empire of Chance tells how quantitative ideas of chance transformed the natural and social sciences, as well as daily life over the last three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law, medicine, polling and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact in biology, physics and psychology. Themes recur - determinism, inference, causality, free wi…Read more
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53Narrative possibility and narrative explanationStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 62 31-41. 2017.
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56Review of particle physics (review)© 2016 Regents of the University of California.The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 3,062 new measurements from 721 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. All the particle properties and search li…Read more
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65The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part I: Darwin, Darwinism, and the MutationistsJournal of the History of Biology 49 (4): 659-684. 2016.This is the first of a two-part essay on the history of debates concerning the creativity of natural selection, from Darwin through the evolutionary synthesis and up to the present. Here I focus on the mid-late nineteenth century to the early twentieth, with special emphasis on early Darwinism and its critics, the self-styled “mutationists.” The second part focuses on the evolutionary synthesis and some of its critics, especially the “neutralists” and “neo-mutationists.” Like Stephen Gould, I co…Read more