Abstract
First, a brief history is provided of Popper's views on the status of evolutionary biology as a science. The views of some prominent biologists are then canvassed on the matter of falsifiability and its relation to evolutionary biology. Following that, I argue that Popper's programme of falsifiability does indeed exclude evolutionary biology from within the circumference of genuine science, that Popper's programme is fundamentally incoherent, and that the correction of this incoherence results in a greatly expanded and much more realistic concept of what is empirical, resulting in the inclusion of evolutionary biology. Finally, this expanded concept of empirical is applied to two particular problems in evolutionary biology — viz., the species problem and the debate over the theory of punctuated equilibria — and it is argued that both of them are still mainly metaphysical.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bartley, W.W., III: 1987, ‘Philosophy of Biology versus Philosophy of Physics’, in Gerard Radnitzky and W.W. Bartley, III (eds.), Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (1987), Open Court, La Salle, pp. 7–45.
Copi, Irving M.: 1954, ‘Essence and Accident’, The Journal of Philosophy (LI), 706–719. Reprinted in Stephen P. Schwartz (ed.), Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds (1977), Cornell University Press, Ithaca, pp. 176–191.
Darwin, Charles: 1859, On the Origin of Species. John Murray, London. Facsimile Edition (1964), Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Dawkins, Richard: 1986, The Blind Watchmaker, Longman, London. Reprinted (1991), Penguin Books, London.
Ehrlich, Paul R. and Raven, Peter H.: 1969, ‘Differentiation of Populations’, Science 165, 1228–1232.
Eldredge, Niles: 1985, Time Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York. Reprinted (1989), Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Eldredge, Niles, and Gould, Stephen Jay: 1972, ‘Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism’, in T.J.M. Schopf (ed.), Models in Paleobiology, Freeman, Cooper and Co., San Francisco. Reprinted in Eldredge (1985), pp. 193–223.
Ghiselin, Michael T.: 1966, ‘On Psychologism in the Logic of Taxonomic Controversies’, Systematic Zoology 15, 207–215.
Ghiselin, Michael T.: 1974, ‘A Radical Solution to the Species Problem’, Systematic Zoology 23, 536–544.
Gould, Stephen Jay: 1977, Ever Since Darwin, W.W. Norton & Company, New York.
Griesemer, James R.: 1992, ‘Niche: Historical Perspectives’, in Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth A. Lloyd (eds.), Keywords in Evolutionary Biology (1992), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 231–240.
Hull, David: 1978, ‘A Matter of Individuality’, Philosophy of Science 45, 335–360.
Kneale, William C.: 1974, ‘The Demarcation of Science’, in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper (dy1974), Open Court, La Salle, pp. 205–217.
Lloyd, Elisabeth A.: 1988, The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Reprinted (1994), Princeton University, Press, Princeton.
Mayr, Ernst: 1988, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Medawar, P.B. and Medawar, J.S.: 1983, Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Mishler, Brent D., and Donoghue, Michael J.: 1982, ‘Species Concepts: A Case for Pluralism’, Systematic Zoology 31, 491–503. Reprinted in Marc Ereshefsky (ed.), The Units of Evolution (1992), The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 121–137.
Neurath, Otto: 1932/1933, ‘Protokollsätze’, Erkenntnis (3). Translated and reprinted in A.J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism (1959), The Free Press, New York, pp. 199–208.
Popper, Karl R.: 1934, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. English edition 1959, Hutchinson, London. Reprinted (1992), Routledge, London.
Popper, Karl R.: 1936, ‘The Poverty of Historicism’, first published in Economica (1944–1945). Reprinted and revised in Karl Popper (1960), The Poverty of Historicism, Routledge & Kegagan Paul Ltd., London.
Popper, Karl R.: 1963, Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., London. Reprinted (1992), Routledge, London.
Popper, Karl R.: 1972, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Reprinted and revised (1979).
Popper, Karl R.: 1974, ‘Autobiography of Karl Popper’, in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper (1974), Open Court, La Salle, pp. 3–184. Reprinted and revised in Karl Popper (1978). Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography, Fontana, London.
Popper, Karl R.: 1977, ‘Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind’, Dialectica (1978), 339–355. Reprinted in Gerard Radnitzky and W.W. Bartley, III (eds.), Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (1987), Open Court, La Salle, pp. 139–153.
Raup, David M.: 1991, Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, W.W. Norton & Company, New York.
Rosenberg, Alexander: 1985, The Structure of Biological Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Russell, Bertrand: 1940, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth, George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London.
Templeton, Alan R.: 1989, ‘The Meaning of Species and Speciation: A Genetic Perspective’, in Daniel Otte and John A. Endler (eds.), Speciation and its Consequences (1989), Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, pp. 3–27.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stamos, D.N. Popper, falsifiability, and evolutionary biology. Biol Philos 11, 161–191 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00128918
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00128918