Biology and Philosophy 15 (4):475-491 (2000)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
Natural selection explains how living forms are fitted to theirconditions of life. Darwin argued that selection also explains what hecalled the gradual advancement of the organisation, i.e.evolutionary progress. Present-day selectionists disagree. In theirview, it is happenstance that sustains conditions favorable to progress,and therefore happenstance, not selection, that explains progress. Iargue that the disagreement here turns not on whether there exists aselection-based condition bias – a belief now attributed to Darwin – but on whether there needs to be such a bias for selection to count as explaining progress. In Darwin''s own view, selection explained progressso far as more complex organisms have the selective advantage whenselection operates unimpeded. I show that these two explanations ofevolutionary progress, selection and happenstance, answer for theirobjectivity to different standards, and for their truth or falsehood todifferent features of the world.
|
Keywords | explanation evolutionary progress natural selection styles of reasoning |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Reprint years | 2004 |
DOI | 10.1023/A:1006609532691 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The Dialectical Biologist.Philip Kitcher, Richard Levins & Richard Lewontin - 1989 - Philosophical Review 98 (2):262.
The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences.Ian Hacking - 1992 - In Andrew Pickering (ed.), Science as Practice and Culture. University of Chicago Press. pp. 29--64.
‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers.Ian Hacking - 1991 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 23 (1):1-20.
View all 16 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Natural Selection, Plasticity, and the Rationale for Largest-Scale Trends.Hugh Desmond - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 68:25-33.
The Current Status of the Philosophy of Biology.Peter Takacs & Michael Ruse - 2013 - Science & Education 22 (1):5-48.
Primate Language and the Playback Experiment, in 1890 and 1980.Gregory Radick - 2005 - Journal of the History of Biology 38 (3):461-493.
The Metaphor of the Architect in Darwin: Chance and Free Will.Ricardo Noguera-Solano - 2013 - Zygon 48 (4):859-874.
Race and Language in the Darwinian Tradition (and What Darwin's Language–Species Parallels Have to Do with It).Gregory Radick - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (3):359-370.
View all 10 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Darwin's Evolutionary Philosophy: The Laws of Change.Edward S. Reed - 1978 - Acta Biotheoretica 27 (3-4):201-235.
Progress in Evolutionary Economics.James Maclaurin & Tim Cochrane - 2012 - Journal of Bioeconomics 14 (2):101-14.
The Evolution of Darwinism: Selection, Adaptation and Progress in Evolutionary Biology.Timothy Shanahan - 2004 - New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
The Notion of Progress in Evolutionary Biology – the Unresolved Problem and an Empirical Suggestion.Bernd Rosslenbroich - 2006 - Biology and Philosophy 21 (1):41-70.
Fit and Diversity: Explaining Adaptive Evolution.Denis M. Walsh - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (2):280-301.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
80 ( #145,032 of 2,507,591 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,871 of 2,507,591 )
2009-01-28
Total views
80 ( #145,032 of 2,507,591 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,871 of 2,507,591 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads