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Skip to Search Results- 21Brigandt, Ingo
- 2Love, Alan C.
- 1Assis, Leandro C.S.
- 1Crawford, John W.
- 1Gilbert, Jack A.
- 1Knight, Rob
- 4Homology
- 3Biology
- 3Evolutionary Developmental Biology
- 3Evolvability
- 3Mechanisms
- 2Developmental Biology
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Natural kinds in evolution and systematics: metaphysical and epistemological considerations
Download2009
Despite the traditional focus on metaphysical issues in discussions of natural kinds in biology, epistemological considerations are at least as important. By revisiting the debate as to whether taxa are kinds or individuals, I argue that both accounts are metaphysically compatible, but that one...
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2001
We give an answer to the question as to whether quantifier elimination is possible in some infinite algebraic extensions of QpQp ('infinite p-adic fields') using a natural language extension. The present paper deals with those infinite p-adic fields which admit only tamely ramified algebraic...
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Scientific reasoning is material inference: Combining confirmation, discovery, and explanation
Download2010
Whereas an inference (deductive as well as inductive) is usually viewed as being valid in virtue of its argument form, the present paper argues that scientific reasoning is material inference, i.e., justified in virtue of its content. A material inference is licensed by the empirical content...
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Social values influence the adequacy conditions of scientific theories: Beyond inductive risk
Download2015
The ‘death of evidence’ issue in Canada raises the spectre of politicized science, and thus the question of what role social values may have in science and how this meshes with objectivity and evidence. I first criticize philosophical accounts that have to separate different steps of research to...
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2003
Marc Ereshefsky argues that pluralism about species suggests that the species concept is not theoretically useful. It is to be abandoned in favor of several concrete species concepts that denote real categories. While accepting species pluralism, the present paper rejects eliminativism about the...
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Systems biology and the integration of mechanistic explanation and mathematical explanation
Download2013
The paper discusses how systems biology is working toward complex accounts that integrate explanation in terms of mechanisms and explanation by mathematical models—which some philosophers have viewed as rival models of explanation. Systems biology is an integrative approach, and it strongly...
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The epistemic goal of a concept: accounting for the rationality of semantic change and variation
Download2010
The discussion presents a framework of concepts that is intended to account for the rationality of semantic change and variation, suggesting that each scientific concept consists of three components of content: (1) reference, (2) inferential role, and (3) the epistemic goal pursued with the...
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The homeopathy of kin selection: An evaluation of van den Berghe’s sociobiological approach to ethnicity
Download2001
The present discussion of sociobiological approaches to ethnic nepotism takes van den Berghe’s theory as a starting point. Two points, which have not been addressed in former analyses, are considered to be of particular importance. It is argued that the behavioral mechanism of ethnic nepotism—as...
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2005
Peculiar to Konrad Lorenz’s view of instinctive behavior is his strong innate-learned dichotomy. He claimed that there are neither ontogenetic nor phylogenetic transitions between instinctive and experience-based behavior components, thus contradicting all former accounts of instinct. The present...