Journal
BIOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
Volume 31, Issue 4, Pages 459-482Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10539-016-9528-0
Keywords
Statisticalism; Evolutionary genetics; Causal models; Selection; Drift; Fitness
Categories
Funding
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [16K16335] Funding Source: KAKEN
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Over the past decade philosophers of biology have discussed whether evolutionary theory is a causal theory or a phenomenological study of evolution based solely on the statistical features of a population. This article reviews this controversy from three aspects, respectively concerning the assumptions, applications, and explanations of evolutionary theory, with a view to arriving at a definite conclusion in each contention. In so doing I also argue that an implicit methodological assumption shared by both sides of the debate, namely the overconfidence in conceptual analysis as a tool to understand the scientific theory, is the real culprit that has both generated the problem and precluded its solution for such a long time.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available