Thomas A. C. Reydon

Evolutionary theory has found its way into a staggeringly large diversity of fields outside the biological sciences. This Element examines how crossovers of evolutionary theory from biology into other fields occur, and in what ways such fields can be meaningfully considered evolutionary fields of research. Cases of crossover of evolutionary theory have so far not been examined systematically by philosophers of science, and this Element aims to make a start with developing a philosophical account of this practice as a general strategy in science. It shows that theory crossovers do not consist in straightforward applications of a generally accepted version of evolutionary theory to non-biological phenomena, but must be understood differently. As an alternative account, it is suggested that crossovers of evolutionary theory involve a general style of thinking – evolutionary thinking – and it is shown how this provides a unifying perspective on crossovers of evolutionary theory between fields.

The debate on the temporal persistence of entities is characterized by the opposition of two principal positions, three-dimensionalism (endurantism) and four-dimensionalism (perdurantism). Some authors have suggested that this opposition is misguided, because three-dimensionalism and four-dimensionalism are metaphysically equivalent accounts of persistence (3D/4D metaphysical equivalence). Recently, the case of biological species has been used as an example to argue that 3D/4D metaphysical equivalence does not hold in all cases, because different species concepts refer to different kinds of entities, some of which are best conceived of as three-dimensional entities while others are best seen as four-dimensional entities. This argument has not settled the question of 3D/4D metaphysical equivalence, however. The present paper revisits the debate by addressing new arguments that have been introduced recently and examining four assumptions on which these arguments rest. It is argued that these assumptions are problematic and shows why the thesis of 3D/4D metaphysical equivalence should still be rejected.

The ideas Darwin published in On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man in the nineteenth century continue to have a major impact on our current understanding of the world in which we live and the place that humans occupy in it. Darwin’s theories constitute the core of the contemporary life sciences, and elicit enduring fascination as a potentially unifying basis for various branches of biology and the biomedical sciences. They can be used to understand the biological ground of human cognition, common behavioral patterns and disorders, and psychopathology more generally in psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Perhaps the best known expression of this fact is Dobzhansky’s famous dictum that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky T. Am Zool 4:443–452, 1964: 449; Am Biol Teach 35:125–129, 1973: 125), and given that all human behavior supervenes on some biological basis, evolutionary thinking has a vast scope even just in this regard.

While species have long been seen as the principal units of biodiversity, with prominent roles in biodiversity research and conservation practice, the long-standing debate on the nature of species deeply problematizes their suitability as such units. Not only do the metaphysical questions remain unresolved what kinds of things species are, and whether species are at all real, there also is considerable disagreement on how to define the notion of species for use in practice. Moreover, it seems that different organism groups are best classified using different definitions of ‘species’, such that species of organisms in very different domains of biodiversity are not generally comparable units. In this chapter I will defend and elaborate the claim that species are not good units of biodiversity, focusing in the issue of species realism. I will sketch a pragmatic notion of ‘species’ that can be used as an epistemic tool in the context of biodiversity studies, without however involving a view of species as basic units of biodiversity or as the focal, real entities in biodiversity conservation.

This volume provides a broad overview of issues in the philosophy of behavioral biology, covering four main themes: genetic, developmental, evolutionary, and neurobiological explanations of behavior. It is both interdisciplinary and empirically informed in its approach, addressing philosophical issues that arise from recent scientific findings in biological research on human and non-human animal behavior. Accordingly, it includes papers by professional philosophers and philosophers of science, as well as practicing scientists. Much of the work in this volume builds on presentations given at the international conference, “Biological Explanations of Behavior: Philosophical Perspectives”, held in 2008 at the Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. The volume is intended to be of interest to a broad range of audiences, which includes philosophers (e.g., philosophers of mind, philosophers of biology, and metaethicists), as well as practicing scientists, such as biologists or psychologists whose interests relate to biological explanations of behavior.

The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status of evolutionary theory in origins of life research by bringing together philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and empirical research in the origins field. We explore the various ways in which evolutionary theory has been extended beyond biology; we look at how these extensions apply to the prebiotic development of (proto)metabolism; and we investigate how the terminology from evolutionary theory is currently being employed in state-of-the-art origins of life research. In doing so, we identify some of the current obstacles to an evolutionary account of the origins of life, as well as open up new avenues of research.

Human interaction with the living world, in science and beyond, always involves classification. While it has been a long-standing scientific goal to produce a single all-purpose taxonomy of life to cater for this need, classificatory practice is often subject to confusion and disagreement, and many philosophers have advocated forms of classificatory pluralism. This entails that multiple classifications should be allowed to coexist, and that whichever classification is best, is context-dependent. In this paper, we discuss some practical consequences of classificatory pluralism, in particular with regard to how one is supposed to find the best classification for a given context. We do so by means of a case study concerning oaks, in particular the pedunculate oak (_Quercus robur_ L.) and the sessile oak (_Quercus petraea_ (Matt.) Liebl.), two important putative species that present several classificatory challenges; and by applying one recent philosophical framework conceptualizing classification, the so-called Grounded Functionality Account (GFA) of (natural) kinds. We show how the GFA elucidates several issues related to oak classification and gives directions to optimize classificatory practices, and discuss some implications for scientific taxonomy.

This volume aims to clarify the epistemic potential of applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, and provides a survey of the current state of the art in research on relevant topics in the life sciences, the philosophy of science, and the various areas of evolutionary research outside the life sciences. By bringing together chapters by evolutionary biologists, systematic biologists, philosophers of biology, philosophers of social science, complex systems modelers, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, linguists, historians, and educators, the volume examines evolutionary thinking within and outside the life sciences from a multidisciplinary perspective. While the chapters written by biologists and philosophers of science address theoretical aspects of the guiding questions and aims of the volume, the chapters written by researchers from the other areas approach them from the perspective of applying evolutionary thinking to non-biological phenomena. Taken together, the chapters in this volume do not only show how evolutionary thinking can be fruitfully applied in various areas of investigation, but also highlight numerous open problems, unanswered questions, and issues on which more clarity is needed. As such, the volume can serve as a starting point for future research on the application of evolutionary thinking across disciplines.

Evolutionary explanations are not only common in the biological sciences, but also widespread outside biology. But an account of how evolutionary explanations perform their explanatory work is still lacking. This paper develops such an account. I argue that available accounts of explanations in evolutionary science miss important parts of the role of history in evolutionary explanations. I argue that the historical part of evolutionary science should be taken as having genuine explanatory force, and that it provides how‐possibly explanations sensu Dray. I propose an account of evolutionary explanations as comparative‐composite explanations consisting of two distinct kinds of explanations, one processual and one historical, that are connected via the explanandum's evolvability to show how the explanandum is the product of its evolutionary past. The account is both a reconstruction of how evolutionary explanations in biology work and a guideline specifying what kind of explanations evolutionary research programs should develop.

Ever since its inception, the theory of evolution has been reified into an “-ism”: Darwinism. While biologists today tend to shy away from the term in their research, the term is still actively used in the broader academic and societal contexts. What exactly is Darwinism, and how precisely are its various uses and abuses related to the scientific theory of evolution? Some call for limiting the meaning of the term “Darwinism” to its scientific context; others call for its abolition; yet others claim the term refers to a myth-like story. In this paper we propose a conceptually grounded overview of the term. We show how the scientific dimension of Darwinism feeds into, and is influenced by, guises of Darwinism as a methodology and as an ethically and politically charged “worldview”. The full meaning of Darwinism, as well as how this meaning has changed over time, can only be understood through the complex interaction between these three dimensions.

This paper examines the nature of Hodgson and Knudsen’s version of Generalized Darwinism, asking to what extent it has explanatory force. The paper develops two criteria for potential explanatory transfer of theories between disciplines, and argues that Generalized Darwinism does not meet these. The paper proposes that Hodgson and Knudsen’s version of Generalized Darwinism is best understood as a research program aimed at modest unificationism sensu Kitcher, that provides a heuristic perspective to guide research, but does not produce actual evolutionary explanations.

Non-epistemic values play important roles in classificatory practice, such that philosophical accounts of kinds and classification should be able to accommodate them. Available accounts fail to do so, however. Our aim is to fill this lacuna by showing how non-epistemic values feature in scientific classification, and how they can be incorporated into a philosophical theory of classification and kinds. To achieve this, we present a novel account of kinds and classification, discuss examples from biological classification where non-epistemic values play decisive roles, and show how this account accommodates the role of non-epistemic values.

This chapter examines the status of psychopathy as a scientific kind. I argue that the debate on the question whether psychopathy is a scientific kind as it is conducted at present (i.e., by asking whether psychopathy is a natural kind), is misguided. It relies too much on traditional philosophical views of what natural kinds (or: legitimate scientific kinds) are and how such kinds perform epistemic roles in the sciences. The paper introduces an alternative approach to the question what scientific (or: natural) kinds are. On this alternative approach, the Grounded Functionality Account of natural kinds, psychopathy emerges as a “good” scientific kind that is best understood as a region on a multidimensional space of behaviors rather than as a traditional natural kind.

This paper explores how work in the philosophy of science can be used when teaching scientific content to science students and when training future science teachers. I examine the debate on the concept of fitness in biology and in the philosophy of biology to show how conceptual pluralism constitutes a problem for the conceptual change model, and how philosophical work on conceptual clarification can be used to address that problem. The case of fitness exemplifies how the philosophy of science offers tools to resolve teaching difficulties and make the teaching of scientific concepts more adequate to the actual state of affairs in science.

According to a recent suggestion, the names of gene taxa should be conceived of as referring to individuals with concrete genes as their parts, just as the names of biological species are often understood as denoting individuals with organisms as their parts. Although prima facie this suggestion might advance the debate on gene concepts in a similar way as the species-are-individuals thesis advanced the debate on species concepts, I argue that the principal arguments in support of the gene-individuality thesis are much less compelling than the parallel arguments in the species case. In addition, I argue that the notion of biological function invoked in the gene-individuality thesis (selected effect) is not the one that biologists actually use when individuating genes. Contra the gene-individuality thesis, I argue that gene names refer to kinds, defined primarily (though not exclusively) by causal-role functions

This paper argues that research on normative issues in the life sciences will benefit from a tighter integration of philosophy of science. We examine research on ethical, legal and social issues in the life sciences (“ELSI”) and discuss three illustrative examples of normative issues that arise in different areas of the life sciences. These examples show that important normative questions are highly dependent on epistemic issues which so far have not been addressed sufficiently in ELSI, RRI and related areas of research. Accordingly, we argue for the integration of research on the epistemic aspects of the relevant areas of science into ELSI research to provide a better basis for addressing normative questions.