Woodger, Positivism, and the Evolutionary SynthesisSpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 15 - Trang 535-551 - 2000
Joe Cain
In Unifying Biology, Smocovitis offers a series of claimsregarding the relationship between key actors in the synthesisperiod of evolutionary studies and “positivism,” especially claimsentailing Joseph Henry Woodger and the Unity of Science Movement.This commentary examines Woodger's possible relevance to key synthesis actors and challenges Smocovitis' arguments for theexplanatory relevance of log...... hiện toàn bộ
A relic of design: against proper functions in biologySpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 37 - Trang 1-28 - 2022
Emanuele Ratti, Pierre-Luc Germain
The notion of biological function is fraught with difficulties—intrinsically and irremediably so, we argue. The physiological practice of functional ascription originates from a time when organisms were thought to be designed and remained largely unchanged since. In a secularized worldview, this creates a paradox which accounts of functions as selected effect attempt to resolve. This attempt, we a...... hiện toàn bộ
AnnouncementSpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 6 - Trang 123-123 - 1991
Individuality, pluralism, and the phylogenetic species conceptSpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 2 - Trang 397-414 - 1987
Brent D. Mishler, Robert N. Brandon
The concept of individuality as applied to species, an important advance in the philosophy of evolutionary biology, is nevertheless in need of refinement. Four important subparts of this concept must be recognized: spatial boundaries, temporal boundaries, integration, and cohesion. Not all species necessarily meet all of these. Two very different types of “pluralism” have been advocated with respe...... hiện toàn bộ
Neutral and niche theory in community ecology: a framework for comparing model realismSpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 39 - Trang 1-19 - 2024
Katie H. Morrow
Ecological neutral theory has been controversial as an alternative to niche theory for explaining community structure. Neutral theory, which explains community structure in terms of ecological drift, is frequently charged with being unrealistic, but commentators have usually not provided an account of theory or model realism. In this paper, I propose a framework for comparing the “realism” or accu...... hiện toàn bộ
Ernst Mayr, the tree of life, and philosophy of biologySpringer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 25 - Trang 529-552 - 2010
Maureen A. O’Malley
Ernst Mayr’s influence on philosophy of biology has given the field a particular perspective on evolution, phylogeny and life in general. Using debates about the tree of life as a guide, I show how Mayrian evolutionary biology excludes numerous forms of life and many important evolutionary processes. Hybridization and lateral gene transfer are two of these processes, and they occur frequently, wit...... hiện toàn bộ