Explanation and falsification in phylogenetic inference: Exercises in Popperian philosophy
Acta Biotheoretica (forthcoming)
| Abstract | Deduction leads to causal explanation in phylogenetic inference when the evidence, the systematic character, is conceptualized as a transformation series. Also, the deductive entailment of modus tollens is satisfied when those kinds of events are operationalized as patristic difference. Arguments to the contrary are based largely on the premise that character-states are defined intensionally as objects, in terms of similarity relations. However, such relations leave biologists without epistemological access to the causal explanation and explanatory power of historical statements. Moreover, the prediction-making to which those kinds of relations are limited in practice can lead to a category error—the mental conversion of an abstraction (the classes defined in terms of similarity relations) into a thing (such as an historical individual). The latter practices and problems characterize pattern cladistics, taxa being interpreted as homeostatic property cluster natural kinds, and other instrumentalist research programs. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRasmus Grønfeldt Winther (2009). Character Analysis in Cladistics: Abstraction, Reification, and the Search for Objectivity. Acta Biotheoretica 57:129-162.
Peter Lipton (2004). Inference to the Best Explanation. Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.
Kirk Fitzhugh (2006). The 'Requirement of Total Evidence' and its Role in Phylogenetic Systematics. Biology and Philosophy 21 (3):309-351.
James H. Fetzer (2002). Propensities and Frequencies: Inference to the Best Explanation. Synthese 132 (1-2):27 - 61.
Olivier Rieppel (2009). 'Total Evidence' in Phylogenetic Systematics. Biology and Philosophy 24 (5):607-622.
Steven Rappaport (1996). Inference to the Best Explanation: Is It Really Different From Mill's Methods? Philosophy of Science 63 (1):65-80.
Leandro Assis & Ingo Brigandt (2009). Homology: Homeostatic Property Cluster Kinds in Systematics and Evolution. Evolutionary Biology 36:248-255.
Nico M. Franz (2005). Outline of an Explanatory Account of Cladistic Practice. Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):489-515.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-02-07Total downloads45 ( #24,483 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,320 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
