Exploring what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us, the contributors to From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do.

What methodological approaches do research programs use to investigate the world? Elisabeth Lloyd’s Logic of Research Questions (LRQ) characterizes such approaches in terms of the questions that the researchers ask and causal factors they consider. She uses the Logic of Research Questions Framework to criticize adaptationist programs in evolutionary biology for dogmatically assuming selection explanations of the traits of organisms. I argue that Lloyd’s general criticism of methodological adaptationism is an artefact of the impoverished LRQ. My Ordered Factors Proposal extends (...) the LRQ to characterize approaches with sequences of questions and factors. I highlight the importance that ordering one’s investigation plays in approaches at the level of adaptationism by analyzing two research programs in community ecology: competitionists and neutralists. Competitionists and neutralists take opposed starting points and use explanatory and developmental heuristics to consider more factors in due time. On the Ordered Factors Proposal, these approaches are not only the ecological factors they are open to considering but also the order in which they will consider them. My disagreement with Lloyd’s over how to characterize methodological approaches reflects different views about methodological monism and pluralism. (shrink)

Two strategies for using a model as “null” are distinguished. Null modeling evaluates whether a process is causally responsible for a pattern by testing it against a null model. Baseline modeling measures the relative significance of various processes responsible for a pattern by detecting deviations from a baseline model. When these strategies are conflated, models are illegitimately privileged as accepted until rejected. I illustrate this using the neutral theory of ecology and draw general lessons from this case. First, scientists cannot (...) draw certain conclusions using null modeling. Second, these conclusions follow using baseline modeling, but doing so requires more evidence. (shrink)

A growing number of linguistic attempts to explain how languages change use cultural-evolutionary models involving selection or drift. Developmental constraints and biases, which take center stage in evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo, seem to be absent within this framework, even though linguistics is home to numerous notions of constraint. In this paper, we show how these evo-devo concepts could be applied to linguistic change and why they should. This requires some conceptual groundwork, due to important differences between linguistic and biotic (...) evolution. In biological evolution, development generates the organism's variable traits on which selection and drift act. In linguistic evolution by analogy, we say development generates the linguistic variants on which selection and drift can act. “Linguistic development” then picks out how individual speakers produce and comprehend language. It involves much more than just learning. Using this broad notion of development, we distinguish between different types of bias that could operate in the processes of linguistic innovation and transmission, which correspond to genetic mutation and biological reproduction, respectively. Having thus sharpened our conceptual toolbox, we then reanalyze two well-documented cases of linguistic change and show that, in both these cases, linguists have only considered Neo-Darwinian evolutionary explanations, falsely deploying an exclusive disjunction of selection and drift. We show that there is at least a third relevant alternative in these examples, namely developmental constraint or bias in the sense we explicate here. (shrink)

Neutral Theory is controversial in ecology. Ecologists and philosophers have diagnosed the source of the controversy as: its false assumption that individuals in different species within the same trophic level are ecologically equivalent, its conflict with Competition Theory and the adaptation of species, its role as a null hypothesis, and as a Lakatosian research programme. In this paper, I show why we should instead understand the conflict at the level of research programs which involve more than theory. The Neutralist and (...) Competitionist research programs borrow and construct theories, models, and experiments for various aims and given their home ecological systems. I present a holistic and pragmatic view of the controversy that foregrounds the interrelation between many kinds of practices and decisions in ecological research. (shrink)

We evaluate a common reasoning strategy used in community ecology and comparative psychology for selecting between competing hypotheses. This strategy labels one hypothesis as a “null” on the grounds of its simplicity and epistemically privileges it as accepted until rejected. We argue that this strategy is unjustified. The asymmetrical treatment of statistical null hypotheses is justified through the experimental and mathematical contexts in which they are used, but these contexts are missing in the case of the “pseudo-null hypotheses” found in (...) our case studies. Moreover, statistical nulls are often not epistemically privileged in practice over their alternatives because failing to reject the null is usually a negative result about the alternative, experimental hypothesis. Scientists should eschew the appeal to pseudo-nulls. It is a rhetorical strategy that glosses over a commitment to valuing simplicity over other epistemic virtues in the name of good scientific and statistical methodology. (shrink)

The ecologist today finds scarce ground safe from controversy. Decisions must be made about what combination of data, goals, methods, and theories offers them the foundations and tools they need to construct and defend their research. When push comes to shove, ecologists often turn to philosophy to justify why it is their approach that is scientific. Karl Popper’s image of science as bold conjectures and heroic refutations is routinely enlisted to justify testing hypotheses over merely confirming them. One of the (...) most controversial theories in contemporary science is the Neutral Theory of Ecology. Its chief developer and proponent, Stephen Hubbell, presents the neutral theory as a bold conjecture that has so far escaped refutation. Critics of the neutral theory claim that it already stands refuted, despite what the dogmatic neutralists say. We see the controversy through a Popperian lens. But Popper’s is an impoverished philosophy of science that distorts contemporary ecology. -/- The controversy surrounding the neutral theory actually rests on a methodological fault. There is a strong but messy historical link between the concepts of being neutral and being null in biology, and Hubbell perpetuates this when he claims that the neutral theory is supplies the appropriate null for testing alternative theories. What method is being followed here? There are three contenders: -/- Null hypothesis testing tests for whether a there is a pattern to be explained. Null modeling tests for whether a process is causally relevant to a pattern. Baseline modeling apportions relative responsibility to multiple processes each relevant to a pattern. -/- Whether the neutral theory supplies an appropriate “null” depends upon whether null hypothesis, null modeling, or baseline model is intended. These methods prescribe distinct inference patterns. If they are null hypothesis testing or null modeling, the neutralists’s reasoning is invalid. If they are baseline modeling, the justification of a crucial assumption remains opaque. Either way, the neutral-null connection is being exploited rhetorically to privilege the neutral theory over its rivals. Clarifying the reasoning immunizes us against the rhetoric and foregrounds the underlying virtues of the neutralist approach to ecology. -/- The Popperian lens distorts theoretical development as dogmatism. Lakatos’s view of science as the development of research programmes clarifies the epistemology of the neutral theory. Focusing philosophical attention on the neutralist research programme illuminates (1) the synchronic uses of the neutral theory to make predictions and give descriptions and explanations; (2) its diachronic development in response to theoretical innovation and confrontation with data; (3) its complex relationships to alternative theories. For example, baseline modeling is now seen to be its primary explanatory heuristic. The justification for baseline modeling with the neutral theory, previously hidden from view, is seen in the logic of in the neutralist research programme. (shrink)

Numerous scholarly works focus solely on scientific metaphysics or biological practice, but few attempt to bridge the two subjects. This volume, the latest in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science series, explores what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us. From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics examines how to reconcile the methods of biological practice with the methods of metaphysical cosmology, notably regarding (...) the origins of life. The contributors take up a wide range of traditional metaphysics and philosophy of science topics, including natural kinds, medicine, ecology, genetics, scientific pluralism, reductionism, operationalism, mechanisms, the nature of information, and more. Many of the chapters represent the first philosophical treatments of significant biological practices. From causality and complexity to niche constructions and inference, the contributors review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do: for ontology cannot be read directly from scientific claims. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of emergence are incompatible with reduction. Most scientists regard a system property as emergent relative to properties of its parts if it depends upon their mode of organization-a view consistent with reduction. Emergence is a failure of aggregativity, in which ``the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts''. Aggregativity requires four conditions, giving powerful tools for analyzing modes of organization. Differently met for different decompositions of the system, and in different degrees, the structural conditions (...) can provide evaluation criteria for choosing decompositions, ``natural kinds'', and detecting functional localization fallacies, approximations, and various biases of vulgar reductionisms. This analysis of emergence and use of these conditions as heuristics is consistent with a broader reductionistic methodology. (shrink)

Previous research has demonstrated that trait self-control is related to a range of positive romantic relationship processes, suggesting that trait self-control should be positively and robustly linked to relationship satisfaction in both partners in a romantic relationship. However, the existing empirical evidence is limited and mixed, especially regarding partner effects. With three datasets of heterosexual couples, the present pre-registered studies examined: the dyadic associations between trait self-control and relationship satisfaction both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and whether these effects hold when controlling (...) for both partners’ relationship commitment. The results indicated a cross-sectional positive actor effect, some support for a positive cross-sectional partner effect, and only little support for a longitudinal actor effect. After controlling for relationship commitment, all effects of trait self-control on satisfaction diminished except for a longitudinal actor effect among women in Study 2. Potential explanations for the current results, and implications for theory and practice, are discussed. (shrink)

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.

Current workflows in academic ecology rarely allow an engagement of ecologists with philosophers, or with contemporary philosophical work. We argue that this is a missed opportunity for enriching ecological reasoning and practice, because many questions in ecology overlap with philosophical questions and with current topics in contemporary philosophy of science. One obstacle to a closer connection and collaboration between the fields is the limited awareness of scientists, including ecologists, of current philosophical questions, developments and ideas. In this article, we aim (...) to overcome this obstacle and trigger more collaborations between ecologists and philosophers. First, we provide an overview of philosophical research relevant to ecologists. Second, we use examples to demonstrate that many ecological questions have a philosophical dimension and point to related philosophical work. We elaborate on one example – the debate around the appropriate level of complexity of ecological models – to show in more detail how philosophy can enrich ecology. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to initiate collaborative projects involving both ecologists and philosophers. (shrink)

We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic (...) porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized. (shrink)

The theory of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a, 1980b) and Lakoff (1993) involves a mapping of conceptual structure from one semantic domain to another. We investigate properties of these conceptual domain mappings by comparing them to morphological derivational relations. Schematicity and productivity are properties that Bybee (1985) and Langacker (1987) propose for characterizing morphological derivational relations, which we apply to our analysis of metaphor. Metaphors are argued to vary in their degree of semantic schematicity: Domain relations function as (...) generalizations over specific metaphorical expressions. We also demonstrate three points on a continuum of productivity: Conventional metaphors are highly productive, metaphorically motivated transparent idioms are semiproductive, and opaque idioms are unproductive. Each point is compared with an example of morphological productivity having a corresponding conceptual organization. The results demonstrate that semantic productivity can be characterized in the same way as morphological productivity, suggesting that form and meaning are organized by the same principles. (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide a conceptual underpinning for codes of ethics in business and the professions. Rule-utilitarianism is a theory of ethics which I believe can successfully do this. Business persons and professionals, hopefully, will be able to develop codes of ethics in a manner consistent with a well-formulated general ethical theory. This will help enable codes of ethics to be a bridge between general ethical theory and specific ethical decisions made in business and the professions.

The economically deprived come into contact with the criminal court system in disproportionate number. This collection of original, interactive essays, written from a variety of ideological perspectives, explores some of the more troubling questions and ethical dilemmas inherent in this situation. The contributors, including well-known legal and political philosophers Philip Pettit, George Fletcher, and Jeremy Waldron, examine issues such as heightened vulnerability, indigent representation, and rotten social background defenses.

The Akaike Information Criterion can be a valuable tool of scientific inference. This statistic, or any other statistical method for that matter, cannot, however, be the whole of scientific methodology. In this paper some of the limitations of Akaikean statistical methods are discussed. It is argued that the full import of empirical evidence is realized only by adopting a richer ideal of empirical success than predictive accuracy, and that the ability of a theory to turn phenomena into accurate, agreeing measurements (...) of causally relevant parameters contributes to the evidential support of the theory. This is illustrated by Newton's argument from orbital phenomena to the inverse-square law of gravitation. (shrink)

Since children are considered incapable ofgiving informed consent to participate inresearch, regulations require that bothparental permission and the assent of thepotential child subject be obtained. Assent andpermission are uniquely bound together, eachserving a different purpose. Parentalpermission protects the child from assumingunreasonable risks. Assent demonstrates respectfor the child and his developing autonomy. Inorder to give meaningful assent, the child mustunderstand that procedures will be performed,voluntarily choose to undergo the procedures,and communicate this choice. Understanding theelements of informed consent has been theparadigm for (...) assessing capacity to give assent.This method leaves the youngest, leastcognitively mature children vulnerable towaiver of assent and forced researchparticipation. Voluntariness can also becompromised by the influence of authorityfigures who can exert undue influence andcoerce children to participate in research. This paper discusses factors that may influencethe decision to give assent/permission,potential parent-child conflict in theassent/permission process and how it isresolved, and potential parental undueinfluence on research participation. Theseissues are illustrated with quotations drawnfrom a larger qualitative study of parentalpermission and child assent (data notpresented). We suggest a developmentalapproach, viewing assent as a continuum rangingfrom mere affirmation in the youngest childrento the equivalent of the informed consentprocess in the mature adolescent. (shrink)

We explore the crucial role of diagrams in scientific reasoning, especially reasoning directed at developing mechanistic explanations of biological phenomena. We offer a case study focusing on one research project that resulted in a published paper advancing a new understanding of the mechanism by which the central circadian oscillator in Synechococcus elongatus controls gene expression. By examining how the diagrams prepared for the paper developed over the course of multiple drafts, we show how the process of generating a new explanation (...) vitally involved the development and integration of multiple versions of different types of diagrams, and how reasoning about the mechanism proceeded in tandem with the development of the diagrams used to represent it. (shrink)

SNePS, the Semantic Network Processing System 45, 54], has been designed to be a system for representing the beliefs of a natural-language-using intelligent system (a \cognitive agent"). It has always been the intention that a SNePS-based \knowledge base" would ultimatelybe built, not by a programmeror knowledge engineer entering representations of knowledge in some formallanguage or data entry system, but by a human informing it using a natural language (NL) (generally supposed to be English), or by the system reading books or (...) articles that had been prepared for human readers. Because of this motivation, the criteria for the development of SNePS have included: it should be able to represent anything and everything expressible in NL; it should be able to represent generic, as well as speci c information; it should be able to use the generic and the speci c information to reason and infer information implied by what it has been told; it cannot count on any particular order among the pieces of information it is given; it must continue to act reasonably even if the information it is given includes circular de nitions, recursive rules, and inconsistent information. (shrink)

In the predicate calculus, variables provide a flexible indexing service which selects the actual arguments to a predicate letter from among possible arguments that precede the predicate letter (in the parse of the formula). In the process of selection, the possible arguments can be permuted, repeated (used more than once), and skipped. If this service is withheld, so that arguments must be the immediately preceding ones, taken in the order in which they occur, the formula is said to be fluted. (...) Quine showed that if a fluted formula contains only homogeneous conjunction (conjoins only subformulas of equal arity), then the satisfiability of the formula is decidable. It remained an open question whether the satisfiability of a fluted formula without this restriction is decidable. This paper answers that question. (shrink)

Are the actions of a person operating out of the gifts of the Holy Spirit the same as the actions of that person operating out of infused virtue? Answering this question provides an opportunity to offer a Thomistic account of how the gifts of the Holy Spirit are distinct from, yet related to, the infused virtues. This article begins with two recent arguments for how the gifts differ from the infused virtues. It then rejects those arguments based on Aquinas's mature (...) writing on the gifts. The following section offers an account of the role of the gifts in the graced life of discipleship, including their relationship to the infused virtues, through a focus on the relationship between habit and act. The article concludes with three areas for further research and a nod toward pastoral application of this argument in sacramental preparation for confirmation. (shrink)

Background Intensivists must provide enough analgesia and sedation to ensure dying patients receive good palliative care. However, if it is perceived that too much is given, they risk prosecution for committing euthanasia. The goal of this study is to develop consensus guidelines on analgesia and sedation in dying intensive care unit patients that help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. Methods Using the Delphi technique, panelists rated levels of agreement with statements describing how analgesics and sedatives should be given to dying (...) ICU patients and how palliative care should be distinguished from euthanasia. Participants were drawn from 3 panels: 1) Canadian Academic Adult Intensive Care Fellowship program directors and Intensive Care division chiefs (N = 9); 2) Deputy chief provincial coroners (N = 5); 3) Validation panel of Intensivists attending the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group meeting (N = 12). Results After three Delphi rounds, consensus was achieved on 16 statements encompassing the role of palliative care in the intensive care unit, the management of pain and suffering, current areas of controversy, and ways of improving palliative care in the ICU. Conclusion Consensus guidelines were developed to guide the administration of analgesics and sedatives to dying ICU patients and to help distinguish palliative care from euthanasia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.2 (2001) 296-297 [Access article in PDF] Michel Casevitz, ed. Pausanias: Description de la Grèce. Vol. 5: Livre 5:Élide (1). Trans. Jean Pouilloux, comm. Anne Jacquemin. Association Guillaume Budé for Collection des Universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999. xxxix + pp. 1-82 (verso and recto double pp.) and 83-285. 2 maps. 1 plan. Cloth; price not stated. The fifth book of Pausanias (Elis (...) 1) is the third volume to appear in the Budé collection, following Attica (vol. 1, 1991) and Arcadia (vol. 8, 1998). Textual notes are by Michel Casevitz; archaeological notes are by Anne Jacquemin.The text is produced from a new recension of the manuscripts, based on the researches on Pausanias of Aubrey Diller, which were published in TAPA (67 [1936]: 232-39; 86 [1955]: 268-79; 87 [1956]: 84-97; 88 [1957]: 169-88). Diller showed that four manuscripts (V, F, P, Ma) were the only independent witnesses to the text of Pausanias, deriving from a lost exemplar of 1437 owned by Niccolò Niccoli and later in the Library of St. Mark in Florence. The Teubner edition of M. Rocha-Pereira (1973, 1977) was the first text produced on the basis of this recension. The Budé differs from it in various readings and in its excellent notes. Book 5, the first of Pausanias' books on Elis, contains the beginning of his description of Olympia. The notes take account of the German excavations of the site carried out since 1936, reports of which have appeared in the Jahrbücher des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts and the Olympia Berichten.The collaboration of a philologist and an archaeologist as commentators is particularly fortunate, because of important developments in both areas since the extensive commentaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Frazer, Hitzig-Blümner). The wisdom accumulated in the earlier commentaries is not neglected, but in most cases the information has been brought up to date very well. For example, the comment on 10.2 (147), on the date of the Temple of Zeus, parallels that of Frazer in its dissociation of the building of the temple from the war between Elis and Pisa. There is a review of ancient texts, including Herodotus and Strabo and the Spartan dedication of a shield of the booty of Tanagra set atop the ridge of the roof, the inscription of which Pausanias quotes. A discussion follows of dedication bases set up nearby and the excavation levels at which they were found (the Praxiteles base, the dedication made by the sculptor Onatas of Aegina, the Mikythos dedications, etc.), suggesting that the temple was built in the general period 480-455. The Budé then takes note of a study by F. Krauss (Mélanges Bohringer, 1957) on the columns of the temple, suggesting that those of the east façade are the most beautiful examples of the Doric style of the temple.The comment on the Altis in 10.1 (146) is equally instructive. Frazer simply comments on Pindar's statement (Ol. 10.55) that the area was called Altis, and the comment of Hitzig-Blümner is also brief. The Budé, on the other hand, considers the etymology of from and cites several references in Pausanias to show that the Altis had limits within the larger area of the grove. [End Page 296]The discussion of the dating of the cult statue of Zeus by Phidias (in the 420s) in comment on 5.11 (156-57) is also good and follows in the tradition of Frazer, but here the Budé editor can call attention to excavation of the workshop of Phidias in 1954-58 and the monograph of Mallwitz and Schiering, which shows, because of pottery and other finds, that work on the statue was going on in the 430s. Consequently, the old controversy on the priority of the Olympian Zeus and the Athena Parthenos is settled in favor of the Athena statue, completed in 438.On 5.15.4, line 20: the reading of the manuscripts' which includes the... (shrink)

The generative entrenchment of an entity is a measure of how much of the generated structure or activity of a complex system depends upon the presence or activity of that entity. It is argued that entities with higher degrees of generative entrenchment are more conservative in evolutionary changes of such systems. A variety of models of complex structures incorporating the effects of generative entrenchment are presented and we demonstrate their relevance in analyzing and explaining a variety of developmental and evolutionary (...) phenomena, both on a macroscopic developmental and evolutionary scale, and using models and strategies pioneered by Kauffman, on the more microscopic scale appropriate to the analysis of the structure and behavior of gene control networks. The resulting picture suggests that generative entrenchment acts as a powerful and constructive developmental constraint on the course of evolutionary processes. Since virtually any system exhibits varying degrees of generative entrenchment among its parts and activities, these studies and results have in addition broad potential application for the analysis of generative structures in other areas. (shrink)