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Skip to Search Results- 42Brigandt, Ingo
- 2Love, Alan C.
- 1Assis, Leandro C.S.
- 1Crawford, John W.
- 1Gilbert, Jack A.
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- 8Book Reviews
- 6Philosophy of Science
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Natural kinds in evolution and systematics: metaphysical and epistemological considerations
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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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Accounting for vertebrate limbs: from Owen’s homology to novelty in evo-devo [Review of the book Richard Owen’s On the Nature of Limbs: A Discourse, by ed. R. Amundson]
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Introduction: This article reviews the recent reissuing of Richard Owen’s On the Nature of Limbs and its three novel, introductory essays. These essays make Owen’s 1849 text very accessible by discussing the historical context of his work and explaining how Owen’s ideas relate to his larger...
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[Review of the book The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought, by Parruthers]
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Introduction: Recent cognitive developmental psychology lend support to the idea that the mind consists of distinct domain-specific modules (e.g., a folk physics, a folk biology, and a folk psychological mind-reading module), rather than a single all-purpose reasoning system. In evolutionary...
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[Review of the book Exceeding Our Grasp: Science, History, and the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, by P.K. Stanford]
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Introduction: What makes Kyle Stanford’s book on scientific realism so valuable to philosophers of science is that it both presents new philosophical ideas and bases its argument on a detailed study of the history of science. While scientific realism—the idea that our most well‐confirmed theories...
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2007
Introduction: Reductionism in the Philosophy of Science develops a novel account of reduction in science and applies it to the relationship between classical and molecular genetics. However, rather than addressing the epistemological issues that have been essential to the reductionism debate in...
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Review: From Embryology to Evo-Devo: A History of Developmental Evolution by Manfred Daubichler; Jane Maienschein
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Introduction: The biological process of development has always served as a focal point for empirical research and conceptual reflection on organisms and life in general. Many have drawn connections between development (ontogeny) and the history of life (phylogeny). The most recent manifestation...
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2007
By linking the concepts of homology and morphological organization to evolvability, this paper attempts to (1) bridge the gap between developmental and phylogenetic approaches to homology and to (2) show that developmental constraints and natural selection are compatible and in fact...
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2006
The evolutionary embryologist Gavin Rylands de Beer can be viewed as one of the forerunners of modern evolutionary developmental biology in that he posed crucial questions and proposed relevant answers about the causal relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny. In his developmental approach to...
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2006
Introduction: Traditionally, studies in the philosophy of biology have been strongly centered on evolutionary biology and systematics. To be sure, during the last four decades the field of molecular biology has been subject to substantial philosophical discussion as well. Still, discussions of...
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[Review of the book Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously, by Jobert]
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Introduction: In the last few decades, the fields of genetics and molecular biology have been of substantial importance for the philosophy of biology. The same does not quite hold for developmental biology, despite some philosophical discussions of development. Jason Robert’s recent book...