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Examines how the philosophy of biology has evolved to our current understanding.
Essays on the contributions to historical and contemporary evolutionary theory of the Baldwin effect, which postulates the effects of learned behaviors on evolutionary change.
Darwinism, Democracy, and Race examines the development and defence of an argument that arose at the boundary between anthropology and evolutionary biology in twentieth-century America. In its fully articulated form, this argument simultaneously discredited scientific racism and defended free human agency in Darwinian terms. The volume is timely because it gives readers a key to assessing contemporary debates about the biology of race. By working across disciplinary lines, the book’s focal figures--the anthropologist Franz Boas, the cultural anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the physical anthropologist Sherwood Washburn--found increasingly persuasive ...
The 10 original essays in Evolution at a Crossroads explore "post-Kuhnian" approaches to conceptual problems in contemporary evolutionary and developmental theory. They focus in particular on the effect that current, rapid developments in molecular biology are having on our understanding of evolution and philosophy of science.Philosophy of science has swung widely between the dogmas of logical empiricism and relativism. Evolution at a Crossroads seeks to forge a new synthesis of the two trends to search for a more solid framework for evolutionary biology as well as a more solid philosophy of science. Complementing and extending such anthologies as Elliot Sober's Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, Robert Brandon's and Richard Burrian's Genes, Organisms, Populations, and Marjorie Grene's Dimensions of Darwinism, this book adds substantially to the emerging and rapidly developing discipline known as "the philosophy of biology."David J. Depew is Professor of Philosophy, and Bruce H. Weber is Professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, at California State University, Fullerton. A Bradford Book
Emerson and Thoreau are the most celebrated odd couple of nineteenth-century American literature. Appearing to play the roles of benign mentor and eager disciple, they can also be seen as bitter rivals: America's foremost literary statesman, protective of his reputation, and an ambitious and sometimes refractory protege. The truth, Joel Porte maintains, is that Emerson and Thoreau were complementary literary geniuses, mutually inspiring and inspired. In this book of essays, Porte focuses on Emerson and Thoreau as writers. He traces their individual achievements and their points of intersection, arguing that both men, starting from a shared belief in the importance of self-culture, produced a body of writing that helped move a decidedly provincial New England readership into the broader arena of international culture. It is a book that will appeal to all readers interested in the writings of Emerson and Thoreau.
One of the most exciting and controversial areas of scientific research in recent years has been the application of the principles of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to the problems of the physical evolution of the universe, the origins of life, the structure and succession of ecological systems, and biological evolution.
This illuminating volume explores the effects of chance on evolution, covering diverse perspectives from scientists, philosophers, and historians. The evolution of species, from single-celled organisms to multicellular animals and plants, is the result of a long and highly chancy history. But how profoundly has chance shaped life on earth? And what, precisely, do we mean by chance? Bringing together biologists, philosophers of science, and historians of science, Chance in Evolution is the first book to untangle the far-reaching effects of chance, contingency, and randomness on the evolution of life. The book begins by placing chance in historical context, starting with the ancients and movin...
Originating from conferences held at the Gregorian University in Rome and at the University of Notre Dame, these essays assess the continuing relevance of Darwin's work across academic fields.
The first collection of essays on Aristotle's philosophy of human nature, covering the metaphysical, biological and ethical works.
Darwinism Evolving examines the Darwinian research tradition in evolutionary biology from its inception to its turbulent present, arguing that recent advances in modeling the nonlinear dynamics of complex systems may well catalyze the next major phase of Darwinian evolutionism. While Darwinism has successfully resisted reduction to physics, the authors point out that it has from the outset developed and applied its core explanatory concept, natural selection, by borrowing models from dynamics, a branch of physics. The recent development of complex systems dynamics may afford Darwinism yet another occasion to expand its explanatory power. Darwinism's use of dynamical models has received insuf...