Online research in philosophy

. Introductory Remarks THEODOSIUS DOBZHANSKY The problems of reduction in biology are currently of considerable theoretical interest and practical ...

This is the correspondence (1959–1969), on the nature of the evolutionary process, between the biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky and the historian John C. Greene.

Should the philosophy of biology deal with organismic, or with molecular aspects , or with both ? We are, of course, not the first to appreciate the ...

Abstract This paper is a close textual criticism of Theodosius Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species. It argues that the book succeeds as interdisciplinary communication by promoting polysemy. The professional goals of two scientific communities are embedded in the text in such a way that each audience reads the call for co?operative action as implicit support for their own methods.

This paper clarifies the chronology surrounding the population geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky's 1937 book, "Genetics and the Origin of Species." Most historians assume (a) Dobzhansky's book began as a series of 'Jesup lectures,' sponsored by the Department of Zoology at Columbia University in 1936, and (b) before these lectures were given, Dobzhansky knew he would produce a volume for the Columbia Biological Series (CBS). Archival evidence forces a rejection of both assumptions. Dobzhansky's 1936 Columbia lectures were (...) not Jesup lectures. The book he intended to write from his lectures began as a stand-alone text in evolutionary genetics; the CBS had been defunct since 1910. In May 1937 -- seven months after Dobzhansky's Columbia lectures -- Leslie Dunn lobbied Columbia University to revive the CBS and the Jesup lecture series. He then quietly back dated, naming Dobzhansky a Jesup lecturer and co-opting his book manuscript as the first volume in the revived CBS. A detailed chronology of this 1936-1937 period is provided. This relocates the CBS and Jesup revivals within the narrow context of zoology at Columbia University. These helped Dunn and colleagues define cutting edges and define themselves as managers and promoters of those edges. (shrink)

In a series of articles and in a recent book, What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry Fodor has objected to Darwin’s principle of natural selection on the grounds that it assumes nature has intentions.1 Despite the near universal rejection of Fodor’s argument by biologists and philosophers of biology (myself included),2 I now believe he was almost right. I will show this through a historical examination of a principle that Darwin thought as important as natural selection, his principle of divergence. The principle (...) was designed to explain a phenomenon obvious to any observer of nature, namely, that animals and plants form a hierarchy of clusters. Theodosius Dobzhansky made this the motivating observation of his great synthesizing work, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937): “the living world is not a single array of individuals in which any two variants are connected by a series of intergrades, but an array of more or less distinctly separate arrays, intermediates between which are absent or at least rare. . . Small.. (shrink)

This paper questions the prevailing historical understanding that scientific racism "retreated" in the 1950s when anthropology adopted the concepts and methods of population genetics and race was recognized to be a social construct and replaced by the concept of population. More accurately, a "populational" concept of race was substituted for a "typological one"-this is demonstrated by looking at the work of Theodosius Dobzhansky circa 1950. The potential for contemporary research in human population genetics to contribute to racism needs (...) to be considered with respect to the ability of the typological-population distinction to arbitrate boundaries between racist society and nonracist, even anti-racist, science. I point out some ethical limits of "population thinking" in doing so. (shrink)

The distribution of organisms in morphologic space is clumpy. Cats are like felids, dogs are like canids and snails are (mostly) like gastropods. But cats are not like dogs and snails are not like clams. This clumpy distribution of morphology has long posed one of the greatest challenges to evolutionary biologists. Does it represent the extinction and disappearance of a oncecontinuous distribution of morphologies, clades perched on the summits of persistent selective peaks ala Sewell Wright, or a primary signature of (...) the evolutionary processes? And if the latter, what processes are responsible for generating it? Although often couched in discussions of the origin of higher taxa, such taxa are but proxies for this clumpy distribution, and ultimately the latter is the critical issue for macroevolution and for Stephen Jay Gould’s opus. Underneath all the controversies over whether species constitute individuals, whether speciation serves to divide intra-specific adaptation driven by natural selection from a set of inter- and supra-specific evolutionary processes, and over the impact of catastrophic mass extinctions on evolutionary trends, the fundamental issue is simply one of clumpiness (or, if you prefer, the inhomogeneous distribution of morphologies). Iurii Filipchenko, a Russian geneticist and the mentor of Theodosius Dobzhansky, introduced the term macroevolution in 1927 because he believed that the origin of the characters associated with higher taxa (those beyond the species level) required a different process of evolution. Filipchenko believed macroevolution was driven by cytoplasmic inheritance, but his general argument was consistent with other saltationists and macro-mutationists of the time, including the paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborne and the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt. These evolutionary biologists shared the.. (shrink)

The Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics (United States National Research Council) marks part of a critical transition in American evolutionary studies. Launched in 1942 to facilitate cross-training between genetics and paleontology, the Committee was also designed to amplify paleontologist voices in modern studies of evolutionary processes. During coincidental absences of founders George Gaylord Simpson and Theodosius Dobzhansky, an opportunistic Ernst Mayr moved into the project's leadership. Mayr used the opportunity for programmatic reforms he had (...) been pursuing elsewhere for more than a decade. These are evident in the Bulletins he distributed under Committee auspices. In his brief tenure as Committee leader, Mayr gained his first substantial foothold within the coalescing community infrastructure of evolutionary studies. Carrying this momentum forward led Mayr directly into the project to launch the journal Evolution. The sociology of interdisciplinary activity provides useful tools for understanding the Committee's value in the broad sweep of change in evolutionary studies during the synthesis period. (shrink)

In his book The Biotech Century Jeremy Rifkin makes arguments about the dangers of market-driven genetic biotechnology in medical and agricultural contexts. Believing that Darwinism is too compromised by a competitive ethic to resist capitalist depredations of the genetic commons, and perhaps hoping to pick up anti-Darwinian allies, he turns for support to unorthodox non-Darwinian views of evolution. The Darwinian tradition, more closely examined, contains resources that might better serve his argument. The robust tradition associated with Theodosius Dobzhansky, (...) Ernst Mayr, and others provides an alternative, scientifically sound basis for challenging the rhetoric of genetic reductionism. (shrink)

RESUMEN: La biología evolucionista no ha logrado definir un concepto de especie que satisfaga a todos sus colaboradores. El presente panorama crítico de las principales propuestas y sus respectivas dificultades apunta, por un lado, a ilustrar los procesos de formación de conceptos en las ciencias empíricas y, por otro, a socavar la visión parateológica del conocimiento y la verdad que inspiró inicialmente a la ciencia moderna y prevalece aún entre muchas personas educadas. El artículo se divide en dos partes. La (...) primera atiende al concepto biológico (o genético) de especie adoptado por Theodosius Dobzhansky y Ernst Mayr alrededor de 1940, así como a las alternativas introducidas para superar sus limitaciones. La segunda parte estudia la tradición “cladista” fundada por Willi Hennig (1950) y sus ramificaciones. Varios conceptos de especie que no era fácil integrar en estos dos grupos se omitieron en aras de la coherencia y la brevedad de la exposición.ABSTRACT: Evolutionary biology has not suceeded in defining a concept of species that will satisfy all researchers. This critical survey of the main proposals and their respective difficulties tends, on the one hand, to throw light on the processes of concept formation in the empirical sciences, and, on the other, to undermine the paratheological vision of knowledge and truth that initially inspired modern science and still prevails among many educated persons. The article is divided into two parts. The first part concerns the biological (or genetical) concept of species which was adopted by Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr ca. 1940 and some alternatives which were subsequently introduced to overcome its limitations. The second part deals with several branches of the cladist tradition founded by Willi Hennig (1950). Various concepts of species that could not be easily integrated in either group were omitted for the sake of coherence and brevity. (shrink)

A student recalls his experiences with two great figures of 20th century biology.

It is nowadays a dominant opinion in a number of disciplines (anthropology, genetics, psychology, philosophy of science) that the taxonomy of human races does not make much biological sense. My aim is to challenge the arguments that are usually thought to invalidate the biological concept of race. I will try to show that the way “race” was defined by biologists several decades ago (by Dobzhansky and others) is in no way discredited by conceptual criticisms that are now fashionable and (...) widely regarded as cogent. These criticisms often arbitrarily burden the biological category of race with some implausible connotations, which then opens the path for a quick eliminative move. However, when properly understood, the biological notion of race proves remarkably resistant to these deconstructive attempts. Moreover, by analyzing statements of some leading contemporary scholars who support social constructivism about race, I hope to demonstrate that their eliminativist views are actually in conflict with what the best contemporary science tells us about human genetic variation. (shrink)

It is illegitimate to read any ontology about "race" off of biological theory or data. Indeed, the technical meaning of "genetic variation" is fluid, and there is no single theoretical agreed-upon criterion for defining and distinguishing populations (or groups or clusters) given a particular set of genetic variation data. Thus, by analyzing three formal senses of "genetic variation"—diversity, differentiation, and heterozygosity—we argue that the use of biological theory for making epistemic claims about "race" can only seem plausible when it relies (...) on the user’s own assumptions about race; the move from biological measures to claims about “race” inevitably amounts to a pernicious reification. We also excavate assumptions in the history of the technical discourse over the concept of "race" (e.g., Livingstone's and Dobzhansky's 1962 exchange, Edwards' 2003 response to Lewontin 1972, as well as contemporary discussions of cladistic "race", and "races" as clusters). We show that claims about the existence (or non-existence) of "race" are underdetermined by biological facts, methods, and theories. Biological theory does not force the concept of "race" upon us; our social discourse, social ontology, and social expectations do. We become prisoners of our abstractions at our own hands, and at our own expense. (shrink)

Speciation is the process by which one or more species arises from a common ancestor, and “macroevolution” refers to patterns and processes at and above the species level – or, transitions in higher taxa, such as new families, phyla or genera. “Macroevolution” is contrasted with “microevolution,” evolutionary change within populations, due to migration, assortative mating, selection, mutation and drift. In the evolutionary synthesis of the 1930’s and 40’s, Haldane (1932), Dobzhansky (1937), Mayr (1942), and Simpson (1944) argued that the (...) origin of species and higher taxa were, given the right environmental conditions and sufficient time, the product of the same microevolutionary factors yielding change within populations. Dobzhansky reviewed the evidence from genetics, and argued, “nothing in the known macroevolutionary phenomena would require other than the known genetic principles for causal explanation” (Dobzhansky, 1951, 17). In sum, genetic variation between species was not different in kind from the genetic variation within species. Dobzhansky concluded that one may “reluctantly put an equal sign” between micro- and macroevolution. In this chapter, I review arguments for and against this "neo-Darwinian" consensus on speciation, as well as debates concerning macroevolution and punctuated equilibrium. (shrink)

Historians and philosophers of science agree that Darwin had an understanding of species which led to a workable theory of their origins. To Darwin species did not differ essentially from ‘varieties’ within species, but were distinguishable in that they had developed gaps in formerly continuous morphological variation. Similar ideas can be defended today after updating them with modern population genetics. Why then, in the 1930s and 1940s, did Dobzhansky, Mayr and others argue that Darwin failed to understand species and (...) speciation? Mayr and Dobzhansky argued that reproductively isolated species were more distinct and ‘real’ than Darwin had proposed. Believing species to be inherently cohesive, Mayr inferred that speciation normally required geographic isolation, an argument that he believed, incorrectly, Darwin had failed to appreciate. Also, before the sociobiology revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, biologists often argued that traits beneficial to whole populations would spread. Reproductive isolation was thus seen as an adaptive trait to prevent disintegration of species. Finally, molecular genetic markers did not exist, and so a presumed biological function of species, reproductive isolation, seemed to delimit cryptic species better than character-based criteria like Darwin’s. Today, abundant genetic markers are available and widely used to delimit species, for example using assignment tests: genetics has replaced a Darwinian reliance on morphology for detecting gaps between species. In the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species , we appear to be returning to more Darwinian views on species, and to a fuller appreciation of what Darwin meant. (shrink)

Dobzhansky argued that biology only makes sense if life on earth has a shared history. But his dictum is often reinterpreted to mean that biology only makes sense in the light of adaptation. Some philosophers of science have argued in this spirit that all work in ‘proximal’ biosciences such as anatomy, physiology and molecular biology must be framed, at least implicitly, by the selection histories of the organisms under study. Others have denied this and have proposed non-evolutionary ways in (...) which biologists can frame these investigations. This paper argues that an evolutionary perspective is indeed necessary, but that it must be a forward-looking perspective informed by a general understanding of the evolutionary process, not a backward-looking perspective informed by the specific evolutionary history of the species being studied. Interestingly, it turns out that there are aspects of proximal biology that even a creationist cannot study except in the light of a theory of their effect on future evolution. (shrink)

The status of population genetics has become hotly debated among biologists and philosophers of biology. Many seem to view population genetics as relatively unchanged since the Modern Synthesis and have argued that subjects such as development were left out of the Synthesis. Some have called for an extended evolutionary synthesis or for recognizing the insignificance of population genetics. Yet others such as Michael Lynch have defended population genetics, declaring "nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of population genetics" (...) (a twist on Dobzhansky's famous slogan that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"). Missing from this discussion is the use of population genetics to shed light on ecology and vice versa, beginning in the 1940s and continuing until the present day. I highlight some of that history through an overview of traditions such as ecological genetics and population biology, followed by a slightly more in-depth look at a contemporary study of the endangered California Tiger Salamander. I argue that population genetics is a powerful and useful tool that continues to be used and modified, even if it isn't required for all evolutionary explanations or doesn't incorporate all the causal factors of evolution. (shrink)

In 1937, just as Dobzhansky published the book that later generations would laud as the foundation of the modern synthesis, the American Naturnlist published a symposium on "supraspecific variation in nature and in classification." Alfred C. Kinsey, who later became one of America's most controversial intellectuals for his study of basic behaviors in another sort of WASP,1 led off the symposium with a summary of his extensive work on a family of gall wasps, the Cynipidae. In his article, Kinsey (...) strongly advocated the central theme of the developing synthesis: Evolution at all scales, particularly macroevolution, could be explained by the genetic mechanisms observed in laboratories and local populations. He first complained that some geneticists and naturalists were still impeding a synthesis with their insistence upon causal separation of levels: "Just as some of the geneticists have insisted that the laboratory genetics may explain the nature and origin of Mendelian races, but not of natural species, so others indicate that the qualities of higher categories must be explained on bases other than those involved in species" (1937, p. 208). He then defended the central postulate. (shrink)

Grene's Two Evolutionary Theories (1958), a philosophical analysis of the nature of scientific disputes, itself contributed directly to discourse in evolutionary theory. I conclude that Grene's descriptions of two rival theories of evolutionary paleontologists — those of George Gaylord Simpson, who stressed traditional Darwinian continuity, and of Otto Schindewolf, who stressed discontinuity in paleontological data — were entirely accurate. But I further argue that both Simpson, as well as Mayr and Dobzhansky, had incorporated notions of discontinuity into their earlier (...) work, but later removed, or at least de-emphasized discontinuity, in their later work. Grene's analysis, published in the year of the Darwinian centennial, was initially treated as a provocative sore point. The paper kept the issue of discontinuity alive in evolutionary theory, and directly influenced work in the 1960s and 1970s, which restored and further elaborated on the significance of discontinuity in evolutionary theory. (shrink)

On the 3rd of March 380, Theodosius, moved by the qualitas (pro reverentia religionis) of the pre-paschal period, a special time of preparation for Easter,mandates the suspension during Christian Lent of all penal trials which normally resulted in torture (Cod. Theod. 9,35,4 = Cod. Iust. 3,12,5). Lent is a specifically Christian time which developed to a large degree in the course of the fourth century, but which varied in duration and organization in the various churches. The law adapts the (...) judicial calendar for the administration of justice to the rhythms of Christian liturgy. Theodosius in 389 (Cod. Theod. 9,35,5; 9,35,7) decrees that during Lent supplicia corporis could not take place, due to the sacredness of those days intended as a salutary penance which culminates in Easter reconciliation. Since the duration of Lent varied within the various churches, civil authorities of the provinces were to be informed by local Christians of the beginning and end of Lent. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project (HGP) has been criticised from an evolutionary perspective for three reasons: completely ignoring genetic variation; improperly treating either all or some genetic variation as deviation from a norm; and mistakenly seeking to define species in terms of essential properties possessed by all and only member organisms. The first claim is unfounded; the second and third claims are more on target. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to use the typological-population distinction to oppose molecular genetics and evolutionary genetics (...) in order to characterise HGP mapping and sequencing aims, especially the production of a DNA reference sequence, as 'anti-evolutionary' and 'pre-Darwinian.' These aims are consistent with certain strands in twentieth-century evolutionary thought: Muller's classical theory, Kimura's neutral and 'effectively neutral' theories, and, to a lesser extent, Dobzhansky's balance theory of the genetic structure of natural populations. In practice, population-based approaches to human genetic variation are similarly vulnerable to charges of 'typological' and 'essentialist' thinking in their treatment of genetic variation as deviation. This means that the Human Genome Diversity Initiative will not provide a population-based panacea for an overly typological HGP, as its proponents contend. Substituting related, and less rhetorically-charged, conceptual, empirical, and metaphysical distinctions for the typological-population distinction furnishes a better way to assess the concept of the normal genome from an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

“I often said before starting, that I had no doubt I should frequently repent of the whole undertaking.” So wrote Charles Darwin aboard The Beagle , bound for the Galapagos Islands and what would arguably become the greatest and most controversial discovery in scientific history. But the theory of evolution did not spring full-blown from the head of Darwin. Since the dawn of humanity, priests, philosophers, and scientists have debated the origin and development of life on earth, and with modern (...) science, that debate shifted into high gear. In this lively, deeply erudite work, Pulitzer Prize–winning science historian Edward J. Larson takes us on a guided tour of Darwin’s “dangerous idea,” from its theoretical antecedents in the early nineteenth century to the brilliant breakthroughs of Darwin and Wallace, to Watson and Crick’s stunning discovery of the DNA double helix, and to the triumphant neo-Darwinian synthesis and rising sociobiology today. Along the way, Larson expertly places the scientific upheaval of evolution in cultural perspective: the social and philosophical earthquake that was the French Revolution; the development, in England, of a laissez-faire capitalism in tune with a Darwinian ethos of “survival of the fittest”; the emergence of Social Darwinism and the dark science of eugenics against a backdrop of industrial revolution; the American Christian backlash against evolutionism that culminated in the famous Scopes trial; and on to today’s world, where religious fundamentalists litigate for the right to teach “creation science” alongside evolution in U.S. public schools, even as the theory itself continues to evolve in new and surprising directions. Throughout, Larson trains his spotlight on the lives and careers of the scientists, explorers, and eccentrics whose collaborations and competitions have driven the theory of evolution forward. Here are portraits of Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Galton, Huxley, Mendel, Morgan, Fisher, Dobzhansky, Watson and Crick, W. D. Hamilton, E. O. Wilson, and many others. Celebrated as one of mankind’s crowning scientific achievements and reviled as a threat to our deepest values, the theory of evolution has utterly transformed our view of life, religion, origins, and the theory itself, and remains controversial, especially in the United States (where 90% of adults do not subscribe to the full Darwinian vision). Replete with fresh material and new insights, Evolution will educate and inform while taking readers on a fascinating journey of discovery. (shrink)

The theory of evolution: The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, by R. Scoon. Evolution in its relation to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of culture, by F.S.C. Northrop. The genetic nature of differences among men, by T. Dobzhansky. Evolutionary thought in America: Evolution and American sociology by R.E.L. Faris. The impact of the idea of evolution on the American political and constitutional tradition, by E.S. Corwin. Evolutionism in American economics, 1800-1946, by J.J. Spengler. The influence of (...) evolutionary theory upon American psychological thought, by E.G. Boring. Naturalism in American literature, by M. Cowley. The idea of organic expression and American architecture, by D.D. Egbert. Evolution and moral theory in America, W.F. Quillian, Jr. Evolution and theology in America, by S. Persons. (shrink)

Language and mind, by N. Chomsky.--Some reflections on the nature of consciousness, by B. A. Farrell.--The two faces of perception, by J. R. Platt.--Building better brains, by R. W. Gerard.--The nature of psychological change and its relation to cultural change, by L. S. Kubie.--Alienation and autonomy, by B. Bettelheim.--Darwin versus Copernicus, by T. Dobzhansky.--Speculations on the problem of man's coming to the ground, by S. L. Washburn.--Revolution and development, by K. E. Boulding.--The peasant revolt of our times, by W. (...) H. McNeill.--Triumph and failure in ancient Egypt, by J. A. Wilson.--The tyranny of progress, by R. Gomer.--Man and mankind in the development of culture and the humanities, by R. McKeon. (shrink)