Philosophy of Biology A Contemporary Introduction( Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

includes index and biblioraphy

Introduction: what is the philosophy of biology? I Philosophy asks two kinds of questions I Philosophy and language 3 The agenda of the philosophy of biology 7 Darwin makes a science 12 Teleology and theology 12 Making teleology safe for science 16 Misunderstandings about natural selection 20 Is Darwinism the only game in town? 23 Philosophical problems of Darwinism 27 Biological laws and theories 32 Causation, laws, and biological generalizations 33 Could there be laws about species? 37 Models in biology: Mendel`s laws, Fisher`s sex ratios, the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium 46 Fitness and the principle of natural selection 51 Darwinism as a historical research program 58 Suggestions for further reading 63 Further problems of Darwinism: constraint, drift, function 65 Adaptationism-for and against 66 Constraint and adaptation 70 What is genetic drift? Central tendencies, subjective probabilities, and theism Function, homology, and homoplasy Reductionism about biology Reduction, eliminativism, and physicalism Arguments for reductionism Antireductionist arguments from molecular biology Reductionist rejoinders Multiple readability, supervenience, and antireductionism Self-organization and reductionism Natural selection and reduction Complexity, directionality, and progress in evolution 127 What is progress, and is it (or could it be) a scientific concept? 128 What does theory predict? 132 Some more specific proposals and their problems 138 Trends versus tendencies 147 Complexity and intelligent design 152 Genes, groups, teleosemantics, and the major transitions 157 Levels and units of selection 158 Kin selection and selection within and between groups 164 Macroevolution and the major trends: is group selection rare or frequent? 169 Genocentrism and genetic information 173 Teleosemantics: philosophy of biology meets the philosophy of psychology 179 Biology, human behavior, social science, and moral philosophy 187 Functionalism in social science 188 Evolutionary game theory and Darwinian dynamics 191 Evolutionary psychology and the argument for innateness 198 What is wrong with genetic determinism? 207 Darwinism without genes 212 Darwinism and ethics 218 Suggestions for further reading 224