55 found
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  1. Explaining evolutionary innovations and novelties: Criteria of explanatory adequacy and epistemological prerequisites.Alan C. Love - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):874-886.
    It is a common complaint that antireductionist arguments are primarily negative. Here I describe an alternative nonreductionist epistemology based on considerations taken from multidisciplinary research in biology. The core of this framework consists in seeing investigation as coordinated around sets of problems (problem agendas) that have associated criteria of explanatory adequacy. These ideas are developed in a case study, the explanation of evolutionary innovations and novelties, which demonstrates the applicability and fruitfulness of this nonreductionist epistemological perspective. This account also bears (...)
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  2.  74
    Conceptualizing Evolutionary Novelty: Moving Beyond Definitional Debates.Ingo Brigandt & Alan C. Love - 2012 - Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 318:417-427.
    According to many biologists, explaining the evolution of morphological novelty and behavioral innovation are central endeavors in contemporary evolutionary biology. These endeavors are inherently multidisciplinary but also have involved a high degree of controversy. One key source of controversy is the definitional diversity associated with the concept of evolutionary novelty, which can lead to contradictory claims (a novel trait according to one definition is not a novel trait according to another). We argue that this diversity should be interpreted in light (...)
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  3. Functional homology and homology of function: Biological concepts and philosophical consequences.Alan C. Love - 2007 - Biology and Philosophy 22 (5):691-708.
    “Functional homology” appears regularly in different areas of biological research and yet it is apparently a contradiction in terms—homology concerns identity of structure regardless of form and function. I argue that despite this conceptual tension there is a legitimate conception of ‘homology of function’, which can be recovered by utilizing a distinction from pre-Darwinian physiology (use versus activity) to identify an appropriate meaning of ‘function’. This account is directly applicable to molecular developmental biology and shares a connection to the theme (...)
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  4. Evolutionary morphology, innovation, and the synthesis of evolutionary and developmental biology.Alan C. Love - 2003 - Biology and Philosophy 18 (2):309-345.
    One foundational question in contemporarybiology is how to `rejoin evolution anddevelopment. The emerging research program(evolutionary developmental biology or`evo-devo) requires a meshing of disciplines,concepts, and explanations that have beendeveloped largely in independence over the pastcentury. In the attempt to comprehend thepresent separation between evolution anddevelopment much attention has been paid to thesplit between genetics and embryology in theearly part of the 20th century with itscodification in the exclusion of embryologyfrom the Modern Synthesis. This encourages acharacterization of evolutionary developmentalbiology as the marriage (...)
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  5. Typology Reconfigured: From the Metaphysics of Essentialism to the Epistemology of Representation.Alan C. Love - 2008 - Acta Biotheoretica 57 (1-2):51-75.
    The goal of this paper is to encourage a reconfiguration of the discussion about typology in biology away from the metaphysics of essentialism and toward the epistemology of classifying natural phenomena for the purposes of empirical inquiry. First, I briefly review arguments concerning ‘typological thinking’, essentialism, species, and natural kinds, highlighting their predominantly metaphysical nature. Second, I use a distinction between the aims, strategies, and tactics of science to suggest how a shift from metaphysics to epistemology might be accomplished. Typological (...)
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  6. Aspects of Reductive Explanation in Biological Science: Intrinsicality, Fundamentality, and Temporality.Andreas Hüttemann & Alan C. Love - 2011 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (3):519-549.
    The inapplicability of variations on theory reduction in the context of genetics and their irrelevance to ongoing research has led to an anti-reductionist consensus in philosophy of biology. One response to this situation is to focus on forms of reductive explanation that better correspond to actual scientific reasoning (e.g. part–whole relations). Working from this perspective, we explore three different aspects (intrinsicality, fundamentality, and temporality) that arise from distinct facets of reductive explanation: composition and causation. Concentrating on these aspects generates new (...)
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  7. The Idealization of Causation in Mechanistic Explanation.Alan C. Love & Marco J. Nathan - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (5):761-774.
    Causal relations among components and activities are intentionally misrepresented in mechanistic explanations found routinely across the life sciences. Since several mechanists explicitly advocate accurately representing factors that make a difference to the outcome, these idealizations conflict with the stated rationale for mechanistic explanation. We argue that these idealizations signal an overlooked feature of reasoning in molecular and cell biology—mechanistic explanations do not occur in isolation—and suggest that explanatory practices within the mechanistic tradition share commonalities with model-based approaches prevalent in population (...)
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  8.  46
    Dimensions of integration in interdisciplinary explanations of the origin of evolutionary novelty.Alan C. Love & Gary L. Lugar - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (4):537-550.
    Many philosophers of biology have embraced a version of pluralism in response to the failure of theory reduction but overlook how concepts, methods, and explanatory resources are in fact coordinated, such as in interdisciplinary research where the aim is to integrate different strands into an articulated whole. This is observable for the origin of evolutionary novelty—a complex problem that requires a synthesis of intellectual resources from different fields to arrive at robust answers to multiple allied questions. It is an apt (...)
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  9.  56
    Character identity mechanisms: a conceptual model for comparative-mechanistic biology.James DiFrisco, Alan C. Love & Günter P. Wagner - 2020 - Biology and Philosophy 35 (4):1-32.
    There have been repeated attempts in the history of comparative biology to provide a mechanistic account of morphological homology. However, it is well-established that homologues can develop from diverse sets of developmental causes, appearing not to share any core causal architecture that underwrites character identity. We address this challenge with a new conceptual model of Character Identity Mechanisms. ChIMs are cohesive mechanisms with a recognizable causal profile that allows them to be traced through evolution as homologues despite having a diverse (...)
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  10.  34
    Conceptual Change in Biology: Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives on Evolution and Development.Alan C. Love (ed.) - 2014 - Berlin: Springer Verlag, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science.
    This volume explores questions about conceptual change from both scientific and philosophical viewpoints by analyzing the recent history of evolutionary developmental biology. It features revised papers that originated from the workshop "Conceptual Change in Biological Science: Evolutionary Developmental Biology, 1981-2011" held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in July 2010. The Preface has been written by Ron Amundson. In these papers, philosophers and biologists compare and contrast key concepts in evolutionary developmental biology and their (...)
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  11. Philosophical Dimensions of Individuality.Alan C. Love & Ingo Brigandt - 2017 - In Scott Lidgard & Lynn K. Nyhart (eds.), Biological Individuality: Integrating Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 318-348.
    Although natural philosophers have long been interested in individuality, it has been of interest to contemporary philosophers of biology because of its role in different aspects of evolutionary biology. These debates include whether species are individuals or classes, what counts as a unit of selection, and how transitions in individuality occur evolutionarily. Philosophical analyses are often conducted in terms of metaphysics (“what is an individual?”), rather than epistemology (“how can and do researchers conceptualize individuals so as to address some of (...)
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  12. Multilevel Research Strategies and Biological Systems.Maureen A. O’Malley, Ingo Brigandt, Alan C. Love, John W. Crawford, Jack A. Gilbert, Rob Knight, Sandra D. Mitchell & Forest Rohwer - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (5):811-828.
    Multilevel research strategies characterize contemporary molecular inquiry into biological systems. We outline conceptual, methodological, and explanatory dimensions of these multilevel strategies in microbial ecology, systems biology, protein research, and developmental biology. This review of emerging lines of inquiry in these fields suggests that multilevel research in molecular life sciences has significant implications for philosophical understandings of explanation, modeling, and representation.
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  13. Theory is as Theory Does: Scientific Practice and Theory Structure in Biology.Alan C. Love - 2013 - Biological Theory 7 (4):325-337, 430.
    Using the context of controversies surrounding evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo) and the possibility of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, I provide an account of theory structure as idealized theory presentations that are always incomplete (partial) and shaped by their conceptual content (material rather than formal organization). These two characteristics are salient because the goals that organize and regulate scientific practice, including the activity of using a theory, are heterogeneous. This means that the same theory can be structured differently, in part because (...)
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  14.  43
    Teleonomy: Revisiting a Proposed Conceptual Replacement for Teleology.Max Dresow & Alan C. Love - 2023 - Biological Theory 18 (2):101-113.
    The concept of teleonomy has been attracting renewed attention recently. This is based on the idea that teleonomy provides a useful conceptual replacement for teleology, and even that it constitutes an indispensable resource for thinking biologically about purposes. However, both these claims are open to question. We review the history of teleological thinking from Greek antiquity to the modern period to illuminate the tensions and ambiguities that emerged when forms of teleological reasoning interacted with major developments in biological thought. This (...)
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  15. Evolvability, dispositions, and intrinsicality.Alan C. Love - 2003 - Philosophy of Science 70 (5):1015-1027.
    In this paper I examine a dispositional property that has been receiving increased attention in biology, evolvability. First, I identify three compatible but distinct investigative approaches, distinguish two interpretations of evolvability, and treat the difference between dispositions of individuals versus populations. Second, I explore the relevance of philosophical distinctions about dispositions for evolvability, isolating the assumption that dispositions are intrinsically located. I conclude that some instances of evolvability cannot be understood as purely intrinsic to populations and suggest alternative strategies for (...)
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  16.  43
    Interdisciplinary lessons for the teaching of biology from the practice of Evo-devo.Alan C. Love - 2013 - Science & Education 22 (2):255–278.
    Evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo) is a vibrant area of contemporary life science that should be (and is) increasingly incorporated into teaching curricula. Although the inclusion of this content is important for biological pedagogy at multiple levels of instruction, there are also philosophical lessons that can be drawn from the scientific practices found in Evo-devo. One feature of particular significance is the interdisciplinary nature of Evo-devo investigations and their resulting explanations. Instead of a single disciplinary approach being the most explanatory or (...)
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  17.  68
    Microbes modeling ontogeny.Alan C. Love & Michael Travisano - 2013 - Biology and Philosophy 28 (2):161-188.
    Model organisms are central to contemporary biology and studies of embryogenesis in particular. Biologists utilize only a small number of species to experimentally elucidate the phenomena and mechanisms of development. Critics have questioned whether these experimental models are good representatives of their targets because of the inherent biases involved in their selection (e.g., rapid development and short generation time). A standard response is that the manipulative molecular techniques available for experimental analysis mitigate, if not counterbalance, this concern. But the most (...)
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  18.  66
    Stress‐Induced Evolutionary Innovation: A Mechanism for the Origin of Cell Types.Günter P. Wagner, Eric M. Erkenbrack & Alan C. Love - 2019 - Bioessays 41 (4):1800188.
    Understanding the evolutionary role of environmentally induced phenotypic variation (i.e., plasticity) is an important issue in developmental evolution. A major physiological response to environmental change is cellular stress, which is counteracted by generic stress reactions detoxifying the cell. A model, stress‐induced evolutionary innovation (SIEI), whereby ancestral stress reactions and their corresponding pathways can be transformed into novel structural components of body plans, such as new cell types, is described. Previous findings suggest that the cell differentiation cascade of a cell type (...)
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  19.  70
    Hierarchy, causation and explanation: ubiquity, locality, and pluralism.Alan C. Love - 2012 - Interface Focus 2 (1):115–125..
    The ubiquity of top-down causal explanations within and across the sciences is prima facie evidence for the existence of top-down causation. Much debate has been focused on whether top-down causation is coherent or in conflict with reductionism. Less attention has been given to the question of whether these representations of hierarchical relations pick out a single, common hierarchy. A negative answer to this question undermines a commonplace view that the world is divided into stratified ‘levels’ of organization and suggests that (...)
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  20.  30
    Erratum to: Theory is as Theory Does: Scientific Practice and Theory Structure in Biology.Alan C. Love - 2013 - Biological Theory 7 (4):430-430.
    Erratum to Using the context of controversies surrounding evolutionary developmental biology (EvoDevo) and the possibility of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, I provide an account of theory structure as idealized theory presentations that are always incomplete (partial) and shaped by their conceptual content (material rather than formal organization). These two characteristics are salient because the goals that organize and regulate scientific practice, including the activity of using a theory, are heterogeneous. This means that the same theory can be structured differently, in (...)
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  21.  37
    Idealization in evolutionary developmental investigation: a tension between phenotypic plasticity and normal stages.Alan C. Love - 2010 - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:679–690.
    Idealization is a reasoning strategy that biologists use to describe, model and explain that purposefully departs from features known to be present in nature. Similar to other strategies of scientific reasoning, idealization combines distinctive strengths alongside of latent weaknesses. The study of ontogeny in model organisms is usually executed by establishing a set of normal stages for embryonic development, which enables researchers in different laboratory contexts to have standardized comparisons of experimental results. Normal stages are a form of idealization because (...)
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  22.  33
    Marine invertebrates, model organisms, and the modern synthesis: epistemic values, evo-devo, and exclusion.Alan C. Love - 2009 - Theory in Biosciences 128:19–42.
    A central reason that undergirds the significance of evo-devo is the claim that development was left out of the Modern synthesis. This claim turns out to be quite complicated, both in terms of whether development was genuinely excluded and how to understand the different kinds of embryological research that might have contributed. The present paper reevaluates this central claim by focusing on the practice of model organism choice. Through a survey of examples utilized in the literature of the Modern synthesis, (...)
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  23.  96
    Conceptual Roles of Evolvability across Evolutionary Biology: Between Diversity and Unification.Cristina Villegas, Alan C. Love, Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Ingo Brigandt & Günter P. Wagner - 2023 - In Thomas F. Hansen, David Houle, Mihaela Pavlicev & Christophe Pélabon (eds.), Evolvability: A Unifying Concept in Evolutionary Biology? National Geographic Books. pp. 35–54.
    A number of biologists and philosophers have noted the diversity of interpretations of evolvability in contemporary evolutionary research. Different clusters of research defined by co-citation patterns or shared methodological orientation sometimes concentrate on distinct conceptions of evolvability. We examine five different activities where the notion of evolvability plays conceptual roles in evolutionary biological investigation: setting a research agenda, characterization, explanation, prediction, and control. Our analysis of representative examples demonstrates how different conceptual roles of evolvability are quasi-independent and yet exhibit important (...)
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  24. COMPARING PART-WHOLE REDUCTIVE EXPLANATIONS IN BIOLOGY AND PHYSICS.Alan C. Love & Andreas Hüttemann - 2011 - In Dennis Dieks, Wenceslao Gonzalo, Thomas Uebel, Stephan Hartmann & Marcel Weber (eds.), Explanation, Prediction, and Confirmation. Springer. pp. 183--202.
    Many biologists and philosophers have worried that importing models of reasoning from the physical sciences obscures our understanding of reasoning in the life sciences. In this paper we discuss one example that partially validates this concern: part-whole reductive explanations. Biology and physics tend to incorporate different models of temporality in part-whole reductive explanations. This results from differential emphases on compositional and causal facets of reductive explanations, which have not been distinguished reliably in prior philosophical analyses. Keeping these two facets distinct (...)
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  25. Philosophy in the Trenches: Reflections on The Eugenic Mind Project.Alan C. Love - 2018 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 10.
    Robert Wilson’s The Eugenic Mind Project is a major achievement of engaged scholarship and socially relevant philosophy and history of science. It exemplifies the virtues of interdisciplinarity. As principal investigator of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, while employed in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Wilson encountered a proverbial big ball of mud with questions and issues that involved local individuals living through a painful set of memories and implicated his institutional home in (...)
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  26.  25
    Evolvability in the fossil record.Alan C. Love, M. Grabowski, D. Houle, L. H. Liow, A. Porto, M. Tsuboi, K. L. Voje & G. Hunt - 2022 - Paleobiology 48 (2):186-209.
    The concept of evolvability—the capacity of a population to produce and maintain evolutionarily relevant variation—has become increasingly prominent in evolutionary biology. Paleontology has a long history of investigating questions of evolvability, but paleontological thinking has tended to neglect recent discussions, because many tools used in the current evolvability literature are challenging to apply to the fossil record. The fundamental difficulty is how to disentangle whether the causes of evolutionary patterns arise from variational properties of traits or lineages rather than being (...)
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  27. Experiments, Intuitions and Images of Philosophy and Science.Alan C. Love - 2013 - Analysis 73 (4):785-797.
    According to Joshua Alexander, philosophers use intuitions routinely as a form of evidence to test philosophical theories but experimental philosophy demonstrates that these intuitions are unreliable and unrepresentative.1 According to Herman Cappelen, philosophers never use intuitions as evidence (despite the vacuous sentential leader ‘intuitively’) and experimental philosophy lacks a rationale for its much-touted existence.2 That two books are diametrically opposed on methodology in philosophy is not noteworthy. But eyebrows might be raised at such contradictory accounts of the phenomenology of philosophical (...)
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  28.  66
    ChINs, swarms, and variational modalities: concepts in the service of an evolutionary research program: Günter P. Wagner: Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2014. 496 pp, $60.00, £41.95 . ISBN 978-0-691-15646-0.Alan C. Love - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (6):873-888.
    Günter Wagner’s Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation collects and synthesizes a vast array of empirical data, theoretical models, and conceptual analysis to set out a progressive research program with a central theoretical commitment: the genetic theory of homology. This research program diverges from standard approaches in evolutionary biology, provides sharpened contours to explanations of the origin of novelty, and expands the conceptual repertoire of evolutionary developmental biology. I concentrate on four aspects of the book in this essay review: the genetic (...)
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  29.  69
    What-if history of science: Peter J. Bowler: Darwin deleted: Imagining a world without Darwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013, ix+318pp, $30.00 HB.Peter J. Bowler, Robert J. Richards & Alan C. Love - 2014 - Metascience 24 (1):5-24.
    Alan C. LoveDarwinian calisthenicsAn athlete engages in calisthenics as part of basic training and as a preliminary to more advanced or intense activity. Whether it is stretching, lunges, crunches, or push-ups, routine calisthenics provide a baseline of strength and flexibility that prevent a variety of injuries that might otherwise be incurred. Peter Bowler has spent 40 years doing Darwinian calisthenics, researching and writing on the development of evolutionary ideas with special attention to Darwin and subsequent filiations among scientists exploring evolution (...)
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  30.  23
    Explaining the Ontogeny of Form: Philosophical Issues.Alan C. Love - 2008 - In Sahorta Sarkar & Anya Plutynski (eds.), Companion to the Philosophy of Biology. Blackwell. pp. 223–247.
    This chapter contains section titled: The Old Problem (Agenda) of the Ontogeny of Form Explaining the Ontogeny of Form Epistemological Issues: Representation Epistemological Issues: Explanation Epistemological Issues: Methodology Unexplored Issues and Summary Acknowledgment References.
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  31.  45
    Reflections on the Middle Stages of EvoDevo’s Ontogeny.Alan C. Love - 2006 - Biological Theory 1 (1):94-97.
    Evolutionary developmental biology (or developmental evolution) is in the middle stages of its “development.” Its early ontogeny cannot be traced back to fertilization but pivotal developmental events included Gould’s (1977) treatment of heterochrony, Riedl’s (1978) analysis of “burden”, the Dahlem conference of 1981, a British Society of Developmental Biologists Symposium, as well as books that incorporated developmental genetics into older comparative themes. A major inductive process began with the discovery of widespread phylogenetic conservation in homeobox-containing genes. One interpretation of these (...)
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  32.  33
    The living fossil concept: reply to Turner.Scott Lidgard & Alan C. Love - 2021 - Biology and Philosophy 36 (2):1-16.
    Despite the iconic roles of coelacanths, cycads, tadpole shrimps, and tuataras as taxa that demonstrate a pattern of morphological stability over geological time, their status as living fossils is contested. We responded to these controversies with a recommendation to rethink the function of the living fossil concept. Concepts in science do useful work beyond categorizing particular items and we argued that the diverse and sometimes conflicting criteria associated with categorizing items as living fossils represent a complex problem space associated with (...)
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  33.  37
    Mutation and evolution: Conceptual possibilities.Adi Livnat & Alan C. Love - 2024 - Bioessays 46 (2):2300025.
    Although random mutation is central to models of evolutionary change, a lack of clarity remains regarding the conceptual possibilities for thinking about the nature and role of mutation in evolution. We distinguish several claims at the intersection of mutation, evolution, and directionality and then characterize a previously unrecognized category: complex conditioned mutation. Empirical evidence in support of this category suggests that the historically famous fluctuation test should be revisited, and new experiments should be undertaken with emerging experimental techniques to facilitate (...)
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  34.  21
    Positional Information and the Measurement of Specificity.Alan C. Love - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):1061-1072.
    Philosophical discussions of information and specificity in biology are now commonplace, but no consensus exists about whether the privileging of genetic causation in investigation and explanation...
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  35.  57
    Collaborative explanation, explanatory roles, and scientific explaining in practice.Alan C. Love - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 52:88-94.
    Scientific explanation is a perennial topic in philosophy of science, but the literature has fragmented into specialized discussions in different scientific disciplines. An increasing attention to scientific practice by philosophers is (in part) responsible for this fragmentation and has put pressure on criteria of adequacy for philosophical accounts of explanation, usually demanding some form of pluralism. This commentary examines the arguments offered by Fagan and Woody with respect to explanation and understanding in scientific practice. I begin by scrutinizing Fagan's concept (...)
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  36.  77
    (1 other version)New Perspectives on Reductionism in Biology.Alan C. Love - 2018 - Philosophy of Science 85 (3):523-529.
    Reductive explanations are psychologically seductive; when given two explanations, people prefer the one that refers to lower-level components or processes to account for the phenomena under consideration even when information about these lower levels is irrelevant. Maybe individuals assume that a reductive explanation is what a scientific explanation should look like (e.g., neuroscience should explain psychology) or presume that information about lower-level components or processes is more explanatory (e.g., molecular detail explains better than anatomical detail). Philosophers have been analyzing reduction (...)
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  37.  83
    Evolvability as a Disposition: Philosophical Distinctions, Scientific Implications.Ingo Brigandt, Cristina Villegas, Alan C. Love & Laura Nuño de la Rosa - 2023 - In Thomas F. Hansen, David Houle, Mihaela Pavlicev & Christophe Pélabon (eds.), Evolvability: A Unifying Concept in Evolutionary Biology? National Geographic Books. pp. 55–72.
    A disposition or dispositional property is a capacity, ability, or potential to display or exhibit some outcome. Evolvability refers to a disposition to evolve. This chapter discusses why the dispositional nature of evolvability matters—why philosophical distinctions about dispositions can have scientific implications. To that end, we build a conceptual toolkit with vocabulary from prior philosophical analyses using a different disposition: protein foldability. We then apply this toolkit to address several methodological questions related to evolvability. What entities are the bearers of (...)
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  38.  22
    Facts, Objectivity, Failure, and Trust.Alan C. Love - 2023 - Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 10 (1):78.
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  39.  53
    Titles and abstracts for the Pitt-London Workshop in the Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience: September 2001.Karen Arnold, James Bogen, Ingo Brigandt, Joe Cain, Paul Griffiths, Catherine Kendig, James Lennox, Alan C. Love, Peter Machamer, Jacqueline Sullivan, Sandra D. Mitchell, David Papineau, Karola Stotz & D. M. Walsh - 2001
    Titles and abstracts for the Pitt-London Workshop in the Philosophy of Biology and Neuroscience: September 2001.
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  40.  64
    Reformulating Philosophical Methodology or Rebuilding Our Picture of Philosophy.Alan C. Love - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):322-335.
    Conceptual analysis aims to uncover the basic criteria of concepts that underwrite categorizing members via the method of cases. However, conceptual analysis has not been very successful and experimental philosophy has increasingly detailed this lack of success. This essay reviews Thinking Off Your Feet: How Empirical Psychology Vindicates Armchair Philosophy by Michael Strevens, which attempts a novel defence of conceptual analysis. It is a strategic intervention that seems to preserve a relatively traditional picture of philosophical inquiry. I concentrate on several (...)
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  41.  24
    Correction to: Teleonomy: Revisiting a Proposed Conceptual Replacement for Teleology.Max Dresow & Alan C. Love - forthcoming - Biological Theory:1-1.
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  42.  68
    More worry and less love?Alan C. Love, Ingo Brigandt, Karola Stotz, Daniel Schweitzer & Alexander Rosenberg - 2008 - Metascience 17 (1):1-26.
    Review symposium of Alexander Rosenberg’s Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology [2006]. -/- Worry carries with it a connotation of false concern, as in ‘your mother is always worried about you’. And yet some worrying, including that of your mother, turns out to be justified. Alexander Rosenberg’s new book is an extended argument intended to assuage false concerns about reductionism and molecular biology while encouraging a loving embrace of the two.
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  43.  43
    Catherine Kendig, ed. Natural Kinds and Classification in Scientific Practice. London: Routledge, 2016. Pp. xx+247. $153.00.Max Dresow & Alan C. Love - 2018 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 8 (1):217-222.
    Nobody wants unnatural kinds. Just as we prefer all natural ingredients in our food, so also we prefer natural kinds in our ontology and epistemology. Philosophers contrast natural with merely “conventional” kinds, and scientists advocate for natural rather than artificial classification systems. A central plank of the desired naturalness is “mind independence”—the property of existing independent of human interests and desires. Natural kinds are discovered, not made. They reflect the structure of the world (“nature’s joints”) and for this reason justify (...)
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  44.  50
    Evolution and Development: Conceptual Issues.Alan C. Love - 2024 - Cambridge University Press.
    The intersection of development and evolution has always harbored conceptual issues, but many of these are on display in contemporary evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). These issues include: (1) the precise constitution of evo-devo, with its focus on both the evolution of development and the developmental basis of evolution, and how it fits within evolutionary theory; (2) the nature of evo-devo model systems that comprise the material of comparative and experimental research; (3) the puzzle of how to understand the widely used (...)
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  45.  56
    The return of the embryo.Alan C. Love - 2005 - Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):567-584.
    Review by Alan Love of "Keywords & Concepts in Evolutionary Developmental Biology." Hall, Brian K. and Wendy M. Olson (Eds), Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Hb. 476+xvi pp.
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  46.  55
    Darwin and Cirripedia Prior to 1846: Exploring the Origins of the Barnacle Research. [REVIEW]Alan C. Love - 2002 - Journal of the History of Biology 35 (2):251-289.
    Phillip Sloan has thoroughly documented the importance of Darwin's general invertebrate research program in the period from 1826 to 1836 and demonstrated how it had an impact on his conversion to transformism. Although Darwin later spent eight years of his life investigating barnacles, this period has received less treatment in studies of Darwin and the development of his thought. The most prominent question for the barnacle period that has been attended to is why Darwin "delayed" in publishing his theory of (...)
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  47.  52
    Taking development seriously: Who, what, when, where, why, how? [REVIEW]Alan C. Love - 2006 - Biology and Philosophy 21 (4):575-589.
  48. The allure of perennial questions in biology: temporary excitement or substantive advance?: Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein : Form and function in developmental evolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009, xviii+234pp, $95 HB. [REVIEW]Alan C. Love - 2011 - Metascience 21 (1):167-170.
    The allure of perennial questions in biology: temporary excitement or substantive advance? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9533-5 Authors Alan C. Love, Department of Philosophy, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Minnesota, 831 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave. S, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0310, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
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  49. Looking beyond gene concepts. [REVIEW]Alan C. Love - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (2):247–250.
    Book Review: What Genes Can’t Do By Lenny Moss .
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    (1 other version)Lenny Moss: What Genes Can’t Do. [REVIEW]Alan C. Love - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (2):247-250.
    Philosophy of Science, 73 (April 2006) pp. 247–257. 0031-8248/2006/7302-0007$10.00 Copyright 2006 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. 247 BOOK REVIEWS Lenny Moss, What Genes Can’t Do . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2004), 256 pp., $21.00 (paper). Many philosophers of science will have encountered the core distinction between two different gene concepts found in What Genes Can’t Do . Moss argues that contemporary uses of the term ‘gene’ that denote an infor- mation bearing entity result from the conflation (...)
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