S. K. Sarkar

Intelligent Design creationism is often criticized for failing to be science because it falls afoul of some demarcation criterion between science and non-science. This paper argues that this objection to Intelligent Design is misplaced because it assumes that a consistent non-theological characterization of Intelligent Design is possible. In contrast, it argues that, if Intelligent Design is taken to be non-theological doctrine, it is not intelligible. Consequently, a demarcation criterion cannot be used to judge its status. This position has the added advantage of providing reasons to reject Intelligent Design creationism without invoking potentially philosophically controversial demarcation criteria.

  A classification of models of reduction into three categories — theory reductionism, explanatory reductionism, and constitutive reductionism — is presented. It is shown that this classification helps clarify the relations between various explications of reduction that have been offered in the past, especially if a distinction is maintained between the various epistemological and ontological issues that arise. A relatively new model of explanatory reduction, one that emphasizes that reduction is the explanation of a whole in terms of its parts is also presented in detail. Finally, the classification is used to clarify the debate over reductionism in molecular biology. It is argued there that while no model from the category of theory reduction might be applicable in that case, models of explanatory reduction might yet capture the structure of the relevant explanations

This response to Sober's (2008) Evidence and Evolution draws out and criticizes some consequences of his analysis because of its reliance on a likelihood framework for adjucating the dispute between (Intelligent Design) creationism and evolution. In particular, Sober's analysis does not allow it to be formally claimed that evolutionary theory better explains living phenomena than Intelligent Design and makes irrelevant the contribution of the theory of evolution by natural selection to assessments of the status of the argument from design. Finally, a rudimentary alternative framework for theory confirmation is presented here which avoids these conclusions by rejecting likelihoodism and deploying multiple criteria to the problem of scientific theory choice

Ricotta argues against the existence of a unique measure of biodiversity by pointing out that no known measure of α-diversity satisfies all the adequacy conditions that have traditionally been set for it. While that technical claim is correct, it is not relevant in the context of defining biodiversity which is most usefully measured by β-diversity. The concept of complementarity provides a closely related family of measures of biodiversity which can be used for systematic conservation planning. Moreover, these measures cannot be replaced by summary statistics but must rely on inventories of biodiversity surrogates at candidate sites for conservation.

Maynard Smith notes that he provides a natural history and not a philosophical analysis of the use of concepts of information in contemporary biology. Just a natural history, however rich, would do little to resolve the ongoing controversy about the role of these concepts in biology. None of the disputants deny that the biological use of these concepts is pervasive. The dispute is about whether these concepts—and the framework in which they are embedded—continue to be of explanatory value in contemporary biology. Fortunately, Maynard Smith does much more than provide a natural history: his contribution is also a sustained attempt to justify many of the uses of information in biology.

This paper analyzes the development of evolutionary theory in the period from 1918 to 1932. It argues that: (i) Fisher's work in 1918 constituted a not fully satisfactory reduction of biometry to Mendelism; (ii) there was a synthesis in the 1920s but that this synthesis was mainly one of classical genetics with population genetics, with Haldane's The Causes of Evolution being its founding document; (iii) the most important achievement of the models of theoretical population genetics was to show that natural selection sufficed as a mechanism for evolution; and (iv) Haldane formulated a prospective evolutionary theory in the 1920s whereas Fisher and Wright formulated retrospective theories of evolutionary history.

Despite the transformation in biological practice and theory brought about by discoveries in molecular biology, until recently philosophy of biology continued to focus on evolutionary biology. When the Human Genome Project got underway in the late 1980s and early 1990s, philosophers of biology -- unlike historians and social scientists -- had little to add to the debate. In this landmark collection of essays, Sahotra Sarkar broadens the scope of current discussions of the philosophy of biology, viewing molecular biology as a unifying perspective on life that complements that of evolutionary biology. His focus is on molecular biology, but the overriding question behind these papers is what molecular biology contributes to all traditional areas of biological research.Molecular biology -- described with some foresight in a 1938 Rockefeller Foundation report as a branch of science in which "delicate modern techniques are being used to investigate ever more minute details" -- and its modeling strategies apparently argue in favor of physical reductionism. Sarkar's first three chapters explore reductionism -- defending it, but cautioning that reduction to molecular interactions is not necessarily a reduction to genetics. The next sections of the book discuss function, exploring how functional explanations pose a problem for reductionism; the informational interpretation of biology and how it interacts with reductionism; and the tension between the unifying framework of molecular biology and the received framework of evolutionary theory. The concluding chapter is an essay in the emerging field of developmental evolution, exploring what molecular biology may contribute to the transformation of evolutionary theory as evolutionary theory takes into account morphogenetic development

David Malament's (1977) well-known result, which is often taken to show the uniqueness of the Poincare-Einstein convention for defining simultaneity, involves an unwarranted physical assumption: that any simultaneity relation must remain invariant under temporal reflections. Once that assumption is removed, his other criteria for defining simultaneity are also satisfied by membership in the same backward (forward) null cone of the family of such cones with vertices on an inertial path. What is then unique about the Poincare-Einstein convention is that it is independent of the choice of inertial path in a given inertial frame, confirming a remark in Einstein 1905. Similarly, what is unique about the backward (forward) null cone definition is that it is independent of the state of motion of an observer at a point on the inertial path.

A new direction in philosophy Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science. Criticism and decline Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology. A resurgence of interest During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence. Hard-to-find core writings now available This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide importantbackground information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers.

This book explores the epistemological and ethical issues at the foundations of environmental philosophy, emphasising the conservation of biodiversity. Sahota Sarkar criticises attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature and defends an anthropocentric position on biodiversity conservation based on an untraditional concept of transformative value. Unlike other studies in the field of environmental philosophy, this book is as much concerned with epistemological issues as with environmental ethics. It covers a broad range of topics, including problems of explanation and prediction in traditional ecology and how individual-based models and Geographic Information Systems technology is transforming ecology. Introducing a brief history of conservation biology, Sarkar analyses the consensus framework for conservation planning through adaptive management. He concludes with a discussion of directions for theoretical research in conservation biology and environmental philosophy.

Environmental philosophy is a hybrid discipline drawing extensively from epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of science and analyzing disciplines such as conservation biology, restoration ecology, sustainability studies, and political ecology. The book being discussed both provides an overview of environmental philosophy and develops an anthropocentric framework for it. That framework treats natural values as deep cultural values. Tradeoffs between natural values are analyzed using decision theory to the extent possible, leaving many interesting question for philosophical deliberation. This framework is supposed to be applicable in practical contexts

Biological diversity - or ‘biodiversity’ - is the degree of variation of life within an ecosystem. It is a relatively new topic of study but has grown enormously in recent years. Because of its interdisciplinary nature the very concept of biodiversity is the subject of debate amongst philosophers, biologists, geographers and environmentalists. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Biodiversity is an outstanding reference source to the key topics and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising twenty-three chapters by a team of international contributors the _Handbook_ is divided into six parts: Historical and sociological contexts, focusing on the emergence of the term and early attempts to measure biodiversity _What is biodiversity? _How should biodiversity be defined? How can biodiversity include entities at the edge of its boundaries, including microbial diversity and genetically engineered organisms? _Why protect biodiversity? _What can traditional environmental ethics_ _contribute to biodiversity?_ _Topics covered include anthropocentrism, intrinsic value, and ethical controversies surrounding the economics of biodiversity _Measurement and methodology: _including decision-theory and conservation, the use of indicators for biodiversity, and the changing use of genetics in biodiversity conservation _Social contexts and global justice: _including conservation and community conflicts and biodiversity and cultural values _Biodiversity and other environmental values_: How does biodiversity relate to other values like ecological restoration or ecological sustainability? Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, environmental science and environmental studies, and conservation management, it will also be extremely useful to those studying biodiversity in subjects such as biology and geography.

This paper attempts a critical reappraisal of Nagel's (1961, 1970) model of reduction taking into account both traditional criticisms and recent defenses. This model treats reduction as a type of explanation in which a reduced theory is explained by a reducing theory after their relevant representational items have been suitably connected. In accordance with the deductive-nomological model, the explanation is supposed to consist of a logical deduction. Nagel was a pluralist about both the logical form of the connections between the reduced and reducing theories (which could be conditionals or biconditionals) and their epistemological status (as analytic connections, conventions, or synthetic claims). This paper defends Nagel's pluralism on both counts and, in the process, argues that the multiple realizability objection to reductionism is misplaced. It also argues that the Nagel model correctly characterizes reduction as a type of explanation. However, it notes that logical deduction must be replaced by a broader class of inferential techniques that allow for different types of approximation. Whereas Nagel (1970), in contrast to his earlier position (1961), recognized the relevance of approximation, he did not realize its full import for the model. Throughout the paper two case studies are used to illustrate the arguments: the putative reduction of classical thermodynamics to the kinetic theory of matter and that of classical genetics to molecular biology.

A framework is presented in which the role ofdevelopmental rules in phenotypic evolution canbe studied for some simple situations. Usingtwo different implicit models of development,characterized by different developmental mapsfrom genotypes to phenotypes, it is shown bysimulation that developmental rules and driftcan result in directional phenotypic evolutionwithout selection. For both models thesimulations show that the critical parameterthat drives the final phenotypic distributionis the cardinality of the set of genotypes thatmap to each phenotype. Details of thedevelopmental map do not matter. If phenotypesare randomly assigned to genotypes, the lastresult can also be proved analytically.

On the basis of distinctions between those properties of entities that can be defined without reference to other entities and those that (in different ways) cannot, this note argues that non-trivial forms of frequency-dependent selection of entities should be interpreted as selection occurring at a level higher than that of those entities. It points out that, except in degenerately simple cases, evolutionary game-theoretic models of selection are not models of individual selection. Similarly, models of genotypic selection such as heterosis cannot be legitimately interpreted as models of genic selection. The analysis presented here supports the views that: (i) selection should be viewed as a multi-level process; (ii) upper-level selection is ubiquitous; (iii) kin selection should be viewed as a type of group selection rather than individual selection; and (iv) inclusive fitness is not an individual property.

Carnap’s work was instrumental to the liberalization of empiricism in the 1930s that transformed the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle to what came to be known as logical empiricism. A central feature of this liberalization was the deployment of the Principle of Tolerance, originally introduced in logic, but now invoked in an epistemological context in “Testability and Meaning”. Immediately afterwards, starting with Foundations of Logic and Mathematics, Carnap embraced semantics and turned to interpretation to guide the choice of a theoretical language for science. The first thesis of this paper is that recourse to an intended interpretation led to a partial retrenchment of the conventionalism implied by the Principle of Tolerance. It required that the choice of a language be based on abstraction from a context; this procedure later became a component of the process of explication that was distinctive to Carnap’s mature views. The interpretive origin of formal systems also ensured their likely syntactic consistency, an issue on which Carnap was strongly criticized by figures such as Beth and Gödel. The second thesis of this paper is that this reliance on an intended interpretation enabled constructed formal systems to be relevant to the development of empirical science.

Comprised of essays by top scholars in the field, this volume offers concise overviews of philosophical issues raised by biology. Brings together a team of eminent scholars to explore the philosophical issues raised by biology Addresses traditional and emerging topics, spanning molecular biology and genetics, evolution, developmental biology, immunology, ecology, mind and behaviour, neuroscience, and experimentation Begins with a thorough introduction to the field Goes beyond previous treatments that focused only on evolution to give equal attention to other areas, such as molecular and developmental biology Represents both an authoritative guide to philosophy of biology, and an accessible reference work for anyone seeking to learn about this rapidly-changing field

A new direction in philosophy Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science. Criticism and decline Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology. A resurgence of interest During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence. Hard-to-find core writings now available This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide importantbackground information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers.

Maynard Smith’s defenses of adaptationism and of the value of optimization theory in evolutionary biology are both criticized. His defense does not adequately respond to the criticism of adaptationism by Gould and Lewontin. It is also argued here that natural selection cannot be interpreted as an optimization process if the objective function to be optimized is either (i) interpretable as a fitness, or (ii) correlated with the mean population fitness. This result holds even if fitnesses are frequency-independent; the problem is further exacerbated in the frequency-dependent context modeled by evolutionary game theory. However, Eshel and Feldman’s new results on “long-term” evolution may provide some hope for the continuing relevance of the game-theoretic framework. These arguments also demonstrate the irrelevance of attempts by Intelligent Design creationists to use computational limits on optimization algorithms as evidence against evolutionary theory. It is pointed out that adaptation, natural selection, and optimization are not equivalent processes in the context of biological evolution.

This paper analyzes the interaction between science, philosophy and politics (including ideology) in the early work of J. B. S. Haldane (from 1922 to 1937). This period is particularly important, not only because it is the period of Haldane's most significant biological work (both in biochemistry and genetics), but also because it is during this period that his philosophical and political views underwent their most significant transformation. His philosophical stance first changed from a radical organicism to a position far more compatible with mechanical materialism. The primary intellectual influence that was responsible for this shift was that of F. G. Hopkins. Later, Haldane came to accept Marxism and its official metaphysics, dialectical materialism, a move that let him accept the materialist conception of the world while still maintaining a resolute distance from mechanism. Throughout all these changes, what is most obvious is the influence of science on Haldane's philosophical views. An influence in the opposite direction is far less apparent.

Conservation biology emerged as an organized academic discipline in the United States in the 1980s though much of its theoretical framework was originally developed in Australia. Significant differences of approach in the two traditions were resolved in the late 1990s through the formulation of a consensus framework for the design and adaptive management of conservation area networks. This entry presents an outline of that framework along with a critical analysis of conceptual issues concerning the four theoretical problems that emerge from it: (i) place prioritization for conservation action; (ii) the selection of surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning; (iii) the assessment of vulnerability of conservation areas; and (iv) the synchronization of incommensurable criteria including socio-economic constraints on conservation planning.

Since the late 1990s, the characterization of complete DNA sequences for a large and taxonomically diverse set of species has continued to gain in speed and accuracy. Sequence analyses have indicated a strikingly baroque structure for most eukaryotic genomes, with multiple repeats of DNA sequences and with very little of the DNA specifying proteins. Much of the DNA in these genomes has no known function. These results have generated strong interest in the factors that govern the evolution of genome architecture. While adaptationist ‘just so’ stories have been offered, recent theoretical analyses based on mathematical population genetics strongly suggest that non-adaptive processes dominate genome architecture evolution. This article critically synthesizes and develops these arguments, explicating a core argument along with several variants. It provides a critical assessment of the evidence that supports these arguments’ premises. It also analyses adaptationist responses to these arguments and notes potential problems with the core argument. These theoretical analyses continue the molecular reinterpretation of evolution initiated by the neutral theory in 1968. The article ends by noting that some of these arguments can also be extended to evolution at higher levels of organization which raises questions about adaptationism in general. This remains a puzzle because there is probably little reason to doubt that many organismic features are genuine adaptations. 1 Introduction2 Preliminaries: Senses of Adaptationism3 Genome Architecture3.1 Surprises of early eukaryotic genetics3.2 Genome structure, post-20014 The Case against Adaptationism4.1 Just so stories versus population genetics4.2 The core argument4.3 Three variants of the core argument4.4 Examples: Non-adaptive features of the genome5 Adaptationist Responses6 Concluding Remarks