CiNii Books - Conceptual issues in evolutionary biology

There has been considerable and lively debate in philosophy of biology over the decade since the first edition of this anthology appeared. Changes and additions in the new edition reflect the ways in which the subject has broadened and deepened on several fronts; more than half of the chapters are new. In all, twenty-three selections take up fitness, function and teleology, adaptationism, units of selection, essentialism and population thinking, species, systematic philosophies, phylogenetic inference, reduction of Mendelian genetics to molecular biology, ethics and sociobiology, and cultural evolution and evolutionary epistemology.

Volume: : pbk ISBN 9780262691628

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There has been debate in philosophy of biology over the decade since the first edition of this anthology appeared. Changes and additions in the new edition reflect the ways in which the subject has broadened and deepened on several fronts; more than half of the chapters are new. In all, twenty-three selections take up fitness, function and teleology, adaptationism, units of selection, essentialism and population thinking, species, systematic philosophies, phylogenetic inference, reduction of Mendelian genetics to molecular biology, ethics and sociobiology, and cultural evolution and evolutionary epistemology.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Fitness: the propensity interpretation of fitness, Susan K. Mills and John H. Beatty. Part 2 Function and teleology: functions, Larry Wright
functional analysis, Robert Cummins. Part 3 Adaptationism: the spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm - a critique of the adaptationist programme, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin
optimization theory in evolution, John Maynard Smith. Part 4 Units of selection: excerpts from "Adaptation and Natural Selection", George C. Williams
levels of selection - an alternative to individualism in biology and the human sciences, David Sloan Wilson. Part 5 Essentialism and population thinking: typological versus population thinking, Ernst Mayr
evolution, population thinking, and essentialism, Elliott Sober. Part 6 Species: a matter of individuality, David L. Hull
species concepts - a case for pluralism, Brent D. Mishler and Michael J. Donoghue. Part 7 Systematic philosophies: the continuing search for order, Robert R. Sokal
phylogenetic systematics, Willi Hennig
biological classification - toward a synthesis of opposing methodologies, Ernst Mayr
contemporary systematic philosophies, David L. Hull. Part 8 Phylogenetic inference: the logical basis of phylogenetic analysis, James Farris
the detection of phylogeny, Joseph Felsenstein. Part 9 Reduction of Mendelian genetics to molecular biology: 1953 and all that - a tale of two sciences, Philip Kitcher
why the antireductionist consensus won't survive the case of classical Mendelian genetics, C. Kenneth Waters. Part 10 Ethics and sociobiology: moral philosophy as applied science, Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson
four ways of "Biologicizing" ethics, Philip Kitcher. Part 11 Cultural evolution and evolutionary epistemology: epistemology from an evolutionary point of view, Michael Bradie
models of cultural evolution, Elliott Sober.

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Conceptual issues in evolutionary biology

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