Darwin’s Unkindly Variable: Fitness and the Tautology Problem
Abstract
Few problems in the philosophy of evolutionary biology are more widely disseminated and discussed than the charge of Darwinian evolution being a tautology. The history is long and complex, and the issues are many, and despite the problem routinely being dismissed as an introductory-level issue, based on misunderstandings of evolution, it seems that few agree on what exactly these misunderstandings consist of. In this paper, I will try to comprehensively review the history and the issues. Then, I will try to present the following “solution”, or, one might say, “dissolution”, of the problem, and consider the wider implications of formal, or schematic, explanations in science: yes, the principle of natural selection is a tautology, and so what? It is a promissory note for actual, physical, explanations in particular cases, and is none the worse for that. This is not a new argument, of course, but it does point up the importance of formal schematic models in science.Author's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
Methodological problems in evolutionary biology I. testability and tautologies.Wim J. Steen - 1983 - Acta Biotheoretica 32 (3).
Matthen and Ariew’s Obituary for Fitness: Reports of its Death have been Greatly Exaggerated. [REVIEW]Alexander Rosenberg & Frederic Bouchard - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):343-353.
Evolution.Roberta L. Millstein - 2001 - In Peter Machamer Michael Silberstein (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science. Blackwell.
The changeful fate of a groundbreaking insight: the Darwinian fitness principle caught in different webs of belief.Ulrich Krohs - 2006 - Yearbook for European Culture of Science 2:107-124.
Two ways of thinking about fitness and natural selection.Mohan Matthen & André Ariew - 2002 - Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):55-83.
Charles Darwin's Natural Selection: Being the Second Part of His Big Species Book Written From 1856 to 1858.Charles Darwin - 1975 - Cambridge University Press.
On the adaptations of organisms and the fitness of types.Lia Ettinger, Eva Jablonka & Peter McLaughlin - 1990 - Philosophy of Science 57 (3):499-513.
The structure of evolution by natural selection.Richmond Campbell & Jason Scott Robert - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (4):673-696.
Analytics
Added to PP
2010-04-18
Downloads
1,310 (#4,869)
6 months
19 (#57,548)
2010-04-18
Downloads
1,310 (#4,869)
6 months
19 (#57,548)
Historical graph of downloads