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224Kin Selection and Its CriticsBioScience 65 (1): 22-32. 2015.Hamilton’s theory of kin selection is the best-known framework for understanding the evolution of social behavior but has long been a source of controversy in evolutionary biology. A recent critique of the theory by Nowak, Tarnita, and Wilson sparked a new round of debate, which shows no signs of abating. In this overview, we highlight a number of conceptual issues that lie at the heart of the current debate. We begin by emphasizing that there are various alternative formulations of Hamilton’s r…Read more
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70Group adaptation, formal darwinism and contextual analysisJournal of Evolutionary Biology 25 (6). 2012.We consider the question: under what circumstances can the concept of adaptation be applied to groups, rather than individuals? Gardner and Grafen (2009, J. Evol. Biol.22: 659–671) develop a novel approach to this question, building on Grafen's ‘formal Darwinism’ project, which defines adaptation in terms of links between evolutionary dynamics and optimization. They conclude that only clonal groups, and to a lesser extent groups in which reproductive competition is repressed, can be considered a…Read more
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633 Species and Organisms: What Are the Problems?In Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. pp. 55. 2013.
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61Scepticism, evidential holism and the logic of demonic deceptionNoûs. forthcoming.Sceptical arguments in epistemology typically employ sceptical hypotheses, which are rivals to our everyday beliefs so constructed that they fit exactly the evidence on which those beliefs are based. There are two ways of using a sceptical hypothesis to undermine an everyday belief, giving rise to two distinct sorts of sceptical argument: underdetermination‐based and closure‐based. However, both sorts of argument, as usually formulated in the literature, fall foul of evidential holism, for they …Read more
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51Reuniting philosophy and science to advance cancer researchBiological Reviews 98 (5): 1668-1686. 2023.Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important wa…Read more
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66On the very idea of biological individualityBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
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25A long-established consensus in the philosophy of biology holds that biological species are not natural kinds with intrinsic essences, despite what Putnam (1975) and Kripke (1980) thought. This anti-essentialist consensus has recently been challenged by Michael Devitt, who insists that it rests on a mistake. According to Devitt, philosophers of biology have failed to recognise the distinction between two quite different questions one can ask about species: the Category question and the Taxon que…Read more
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2Proceedings 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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33The Concept of Agent in Biology: Motivations and MeaningsBiological Theory 19 (1): 6-10. 2024.Biological agency has received much attention in recent philosophy of biology. But what is the motivation for introducing talk of agency into biology and what is meant by “agent”? Two distinct motivations can be discerned. The first is that thinking of organisms as agents helps to articulate what is distinctive about organisms vis-à-vis other biological entities. The second is that treating organisms as agent-like is a useful heuristic for understanding their evolved behavior. The concept of age…Read more
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2DarwinIn W. Newton-Smith (ed.), A companion to the philosophy of science, Blackwell. 2000.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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8The 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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800Philosophy of BiologyIn Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Philosophies of the Sciences, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010-01-04.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction What Are the Biological Sciences (Not)? Systematics Ecology and Evolution Levels of Selection Conclusion References.
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75Does Hume's argument against induction rest on a quantifier-shift fallacy?Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (2): 253-271. 2005.It is widely agreed that Hume's description of human inductive reasoning is inadequate. But many philosophers think that this inadequacy in no way affects the force of Hume's argument for the unjustifiability of inductive reasoning. I argue that this constellation of opinions contains a serious tension, given that Hume was not merely pointing out that induction is fallible. I then explore a recent diagnosis of where Hume's sceptical argument goes wrong, due to Elliott Sober. Sober argues that Hu…Read more
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17The formal Darwinism project: editors' introductionBiology and Philosophy 29 (2): 153-154. 2014.
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391Theory Choice and Social Choice: Kuhn versus ArrowMind 120 (477): 83-115. 2011.Kuhn’s famous thesis that there is ‘no unique algorithm’ for choosing between rival scientific theories is analysed using the machinery of social choice theory. It is shown that the problem of theory choice as posed by Kuhn is formally identical to a standard social choice problem. This suggests that analogues of well-known results from the social choice literature, such as Arrow’s impossibility theorem, may apply to theory choice. If an analogue of Arrow’s theorem does hold for theory choice th…Read more
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114Cooperation, conflict, sex and bargaining: Joan Roughgarden’s: The genial gene. University of California Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-520-25826-6Biology and Philosophy 25 (2): 257-267. 2010.
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45Adaptation, fitness and the selection-optimality linksBiology and Philosophy 29 (2): 225-232. 2014.We critically examine a number of aspects of Grafen’s ‘formal Darwinism’ project. We argue that Grafen’s ‘selection-optimality’ links do not quite succeed in vindicating the working assumption made by behavioural ecologists and others—that selection will lead organisms to exhibit adaptive behaviour—since these links hold true even in the presence of strong genetic and developmental constraints. However we suggest that the selection-optimality links can profitably be viewed as constituting an axi…Read more
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1310. 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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49Is there a Bayesian justification of hypothetico‐deductive inference?Noûs 54 (4): 774-794. 2020.Many philosophers have claimed that Bayesianism can provide a simple justification for hypothetico-deductive inference, long regarded as a cornerstone of the scientific method. Following up a remark of van Fraassen, we analyze a problem for the putative Bayesian justification of H-D inference in the case where what we learn from observation is logically stronger than what our theory implies. Firstly, we demonstrate that in such cases the simple Bayesian justification does not necessarily apply. …Read more
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Species and organismsIn Frédéric Bouchard & Philippe Huneman (eds.), From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality, Mit Press. 2013.
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3An 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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17On geometric mean fitness: a reply to Takacs and BourratBiology and Philosophy 37 (5): 1-7. 2022.In a recent paper, Takacs and Bourrat (Biol Philos 37:12, 2022) examine the use of geometric mean reproductive output as a measure of biological fitness. We welcome Takacs and Bourrat’s scrutiny of a fitness definition that some philosophers have adopted uncritically. We also welcome Takacs and Bourrat’s attempt to marry the philosophical literature on fitness with the biological literature on mathematical measures of fitness. However, some of the main claims made by Takacs and Bourrat are not c…Read more
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2192Knowledge Based System for Diagnosing Custard Apple Diseases and TreatmentInternational Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) 6 (5): 41-45. 2022.There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system c…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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45Review of From Darwin to Derrida by David Haig (review)Acta Biotheoretica 69 (3): 477-481. 2020.
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48Philosophy of Biology: A Very Short IntroductionOxford University Press. 2019.Covering some of science's most divisive topics, such as philosophical issues in genetics and evolution, the philosophy of biology also encompasses more traditional philosophical questions, such as free will, essentialism, and nature vs nurture. Here, Samir Okasha outlines the core issues with which contemporary philosophy of biology is engaged.
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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.
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Biology |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Probability |