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  1. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: a metascientific view of evolutionary biology, and some directions to transcend its limits.Emanuele Serrelli - manuscript
    To approach the issue of the recent proposal of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) put forth by Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd Müller, I suggest to consider the EES as a metascientific view: a description of what’s new in how evolutionary biology is carried out, not only a description of recently learned aspects of evolution. Knowing ‘what is it to do research’ in evolutionary biology, today versus yesterday, can aid training, research and career choices, establishment of relationships and collaborations, decision of (...)
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  2. The Gaia narrative and its link with symbiosis and symbiogenesis.Emanuele Serrelli - manuscript
    First, we will address the unnecessary link between symbio-studies and Gaia, asking for the historical and epistemological reasons why they become associated. In particular, we contend that the association is mediated by the common interest in large-scale physico-chemical and biochemical patterns, rather than by an emphasis on harmony, equilibrium, and cooperation (Visvader 1992). Second, we will ask what Gaia is in a metatheoretical sense: is it a scientific hypothesis, a theory, a metaphor, an inspired invention, or a resurgence of antiscientific (...)
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  3. Teleomechanism redux? The conceptual hybridity of living machines in early modern natural philosophy.Charles T. Wolfe - manuscript
    We have been accustomed at least since Kant and mainstream history of philosophy to distinguish between the ‘mechanical’ and the ‘teleological’; between a fully mechanistic, quantitative science of Nature exemplified by Newton and a teleological, qualitative approach to living beings ultimately expressed in the concept of ‘organism’ – a purposive entity, or at least an entity possessed of functions. The beauty of this distinction is that it seems to make intuitive sense and to map onto historical and conceptual constellations in (...)
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  4. Review of Franklin *What Makes a Good Experiment?*. [REVIEW] Adam_Morton - forthcoming - Metascience 102.
    I praise Franklin's full descriptions of important and exemplary experiments, and wish that he had said more about why they are exemplary.
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  5. Discovering Patterns: On the Norms of Mechanistic Inquiry.Lena Kästner & Philipp Haueis - forthcoming - Erkenntnis 3:1-26.
    What kinds of norms constrain mechanistic discovery and explanation? In the mechanistic literature, the norms for good explanations are directly derived from answers to the metaphysical question of what explanations are. Prominent mechanistic accounts thus emphasize either ontic or epistemic norms. Still, mechanistic philosophers on both sides agree that there is no sharp distinction between the processes of discovery and explanation. Thus, it seems reasonable to expect that ontic and epistemic accounts of explanation will be accompanied by ontic and epistemic (...)
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  6. Naturalizing Natural Salience.Jacob VanDrunen & Daniel Herrmann - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Grice, Lewis, and Skyrms proposed similar distinctions between kinds of meaning. The meaning of terms in human language, as Lewis and Skyrms had it, is ‘conventional’. Skyrms presented models showing how it is possible for conventional meaning to evolve in a population without reliance on pre-existing meaning. But one might think of conventionality as coming in degrees, based on whether the evolutionary process begins with ‘natural saliences’. We propose a theory of natural salience and several extensions of Skyrms’s models to (...)
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  7. “Conducted Properly, Published Incorrectly”: The Evolving Status of Gel Electrophoresis Images Along Instrumental Transformations in Times of Reproducibility Crisis.Nephtali Callaerts, Alexandre Hocquet & Frédéric Wieber - 2023 - Berichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 46 (2-3):233-258.
    For the last ten years, within molecular life sciences, the reproducibility crisis discourse has been embodied as a crisis of trust in scientific images. Beyond the contentious perception of “questionable research practices” associated with a digital turn in the production of images, this paper highlights the transformations of gel electrophoresis as a family of experimental techniques. Our aim is to analyze the evolving epistemic status of generated images and its connection with a crisis of trust in images within that field.From (...)
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  8. Categorical Abstractions of Molecular Structures of Biological Objects: A Case Study of Nucleic Acids.Jinyeong Gim - 2023 - Global Philosophy 33 (5):No.43.
    The type-level abstraction is a formal way to represent molecular structures in biological practice. Graphical representations of molecular structures of biological objects are also used to identify functional processes of things. This paper will reveal that category theory is a formal mathematical language not only to visualize molecular structures of biological objects as type-level abstraction formally but also to understand how to infer biological functions from the molecular structures of biological objects. Category theory is a toolkit to understand biological knowledge (...)
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  9. Origin’s Chapter IX and X: From Old Objections to Novel Explanations: Darwin on the Fossil Record.Charles H. Pence - 2023 - In Maria Elice Brzezinski Prestes (ed.), Understanding Evolution in Darwin's “Origin”: The Emerging Context of Evolutionary Thinking. Cham: Springer. pp. 321-331.
    The ninth and tenth chapters of the Origin mark a profound, if perhaps difficult to detect, shift in the book’s argumentative structure. In the previous few chapters and in the ninth, Darwin has been exploring a variety of objections to natural selection, some more obvious (where are all the fossils of transitional forms?) and some showing careful attention to challenging consequences of evolution (could selection really produce instincts?). Starting in the tenth, however, Darwin turns to showing us what kinds of (...)
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  10. What’s at stake in the debate over naturalizing teleology? An overlooked metatheoretical debate.Carl Sachs & Auguste Nahas - 2023 - Synthese 201 (4):1-22.
    Recent accounts of teleological naturalism hold that organisms are intrinsically goaldirected entities. We argue that supporters and critics of this view have ignored the ways in which it is used to address quite different problems. One problem is about biology and concerns whether an organism-centered account of teleological ascriptions would improve our descriptions and explanations of biological phenomena. This is different from the philosophical problem of how naturalized teleology would affect our conception of nature, and of ourselves as natural beings. (...)
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  11. An account of conserved functions and how biologists use them to integrate cell and evolutionary biology.Jeremy G. Wideman, Steve Elliott & Beckett Sterner - 2023 - Biology and Philosophy 38 (5):1-23.
    We characterize a type of functional explanation that addresses why a homologous trait originating deep in the evolutionary history of a group remains widespread and largely unchanged across the group’s lineages. We argue that biologists regularly provide this type of explanation when they attribute conserved functions to phenotypic and genetic traits. The concept of conserved function applies broadly to many biological domains, and we illustrate its importance using examples of molecular sequence alignments at the intersection of evolution and cell biology. (...)
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  12. No organism is an island: the philosophical context regarding life and environment.Louis Caruana - 2022 - In Jacquineau Azetsop & Paolo Conversi (eds.), Foundations of Integral Ecology. Rome: G&B Press. pp. 197-220.
    Many commentators have analyzed the Papal Encyclical on the care of the environment entitled “Laudato Si’” from various angles but relatively few have written on the philosophical presuppositions that inform the overall stance of the encyclical. It is becoming increasingly evident that, to appreciate the full impact of this work, we need to uncover its ontological and epistemological commitments. This paper makes a contribution in this neglected area by focusing on the nature of life. Two main points are explored: the (...)
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  13. Life Processes as Proto-Narratives: Integrating Theoretical Biology and Biosemiotics through Biohermeneutics.Arran Gare - 2022 - Cosmos and History : The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 18 (1):210-251.
    The theoretical biology movement originating in Britain in the early 1930’s and the biosemiotics movement which took off in Europe in the 1980’s have much in common. They are both committed to replacing the neo-Darwinian synthesis, and they have both invoked theories of signs to this end. Yet, while there has been some mutual appreciation and influence, particularly in the cases of Howard Pattee, René Thom, Kalevi Kull, Anton Markoš and Stuart Kauffman, for the most part, these movements have developed (...)
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  14. Of stirps and chromosomes: Generality through detail.Charles H. Pence - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 94 (C):177-190.
    One claim found in the received historiography of the biometrical school (comprised primarily of Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and W. F. R. Weldon) is that one of the biometricians' great flaws was their inability to look past their population-focused, statistical, gradualist understanding of evolutionary change – which led, in part, to their ignoring developments in cellular biology around 1900. I will argue, on the contrary, that the work of the biometricians was, from its earliest days, fundamentally concerned with connections between (...)
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  15. The proof of the pudding: Yafeng Shan: Doing integrated history and philosophy of science: a case study of the origin of genetics. Cham: Springer, 2020. ix + 197 pp, €84.79 PB, €67.40 e-book. [REVIEW]Charles H. Pence - 2022 - Metascience 31 (2):179-181.
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  16. Whatever Happened to Reversion?Charles H. Pence - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 92 (C):97-108.
    The idea of ‘reversion’ or ‘atavism’ has a peculiar history. For many authors in the latenineteenth and early-twentieth centuries – including Darwin, Galton, Pearson, Weismann, and Spencer, among others – reversion was one of the central phenomena which a theory of heredity ought to explain. By only a few decades later, however, Fisher and others could look back upon reversion as a historical curiosity, a non-problem, or even an impediment to clear theorizing. I explore various reasons that reversion might have (...)
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  17. El origen del rubor - Expresión de las emociones, razas y antiesclavismo en la obra darwiniana.Ginnobili Santiago - 2022 - Culturas Cientificas 3 (1):20-43.
    Algunos aspectos de La expresión de las emociones de Charles Darwin pueden resultar intrigantes, pues, en la explicación de cómo tales expresiones se originan, Darwin casi nunca apela a la selección natural. En cambio, apela principalmente a la idea de que movimientos voluntarios se asocian a emociones, volviéndose por hábito innatos e involuntarios al heredarse a la descendencia. Si bien Darwin da varias razones para defender esta explicación, en este trabajo trataré de mostrar que, si se entiende el libro sobre (...)
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  18. Natural history and variability of organized beings in Kant's philosophy.Bogdana Stamenković - 2022 - Belgrade Philosophical Annual 1 (35):91-107.
    This paper aims to examine Kant’s views on evolution of organized beings and to show that Kant’s antievolutionary conclusions stem from his study of natural history and variability of organisms. Accordingly, I discuss Kant’s study of natural history and consider whether his conclusion about impossibility of knowledge about such history expands on the research of history of organized beings. Moving forward, I examine the notion of variability in Kant’s philosophy, and show that his theory of organized beings relies on the (...)
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  19. Immunoglobulins and Antibodies: Conceptual Projections All the Way Down.Bartlomiej Swiatczak - 2022 - Constructivist Foundations 18 (1):85-86.
    Central to vaccination-induced responses, antibodies are suggested by Vaz to operate as observer-dependent entities that owe their status to categorization schemes of immunologists. Inspired by color research by Maturana, he argues that antibodies should be distinguished from immunoglobulins, which unlike the former can be considered as constituents of structural dynamics of an organism, products of millions of years of evolution. However, a deeper understanding of the historical roots of the concept of immunoglobulin and associated “languaging” and naming processes reveals that (...)
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  20. Understanding life through metaphors. [REVIEW]Bartlomiej Swiatczak - 2022 - Metascience 2022:1-3.
    There is a deep-seated neopositivist view which regards the language of science as a neutral medium of communication, radically different from indirect symbolic forms of discourse characteristic of arts and humanities. But naturalists, like poets and social scientists, also draw on the dominant images in their culture to organize their thoughts and simplify complex concepts. By conceptualizing one thing in terms of another, metaphors in science not only aid mutual communication between researchers but also structure their understanding of experience and (...)
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  21. The History of the Bergsonian Interpretation of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.Mathilde Tahar - 2022 - Bergsoniana 2:73-90.
    Bergson offers an epistemological critique of Darwin’s theory that focuses on his gradualism: for Darwin variation is “minute”, and Bergson glosses “insensible.” His main argument is that if variations are insensible, they cannot confer an advantage to the organism and therefore be selected. Yet, for Darwin, the selected variation is not insensible: to be selected, it must be beneficial to its bearer in the struggle for existence. This article aims at understanding the origin of this misunderstanding by tracing the history (...)
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  22. Animal Languages in Eighteenth-Century German Philosophy and Science.Hein van den Berg - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 93:72-81.
    This paper analyzes debates on animal language in eighteenth-century German philosophy and science. Adopting a history of ideas approach, I explain how the study of animal language became tied to the investigation into the origin and development of language towards the end of the eighteenth century. I argue that for large parts of the eighteenth century, the question of the existence of animal languages was studied within the context of the philosophical question of whether animals possess reason. In Germany, the (...)
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  23. Evaluating the Validity of Animal Models of Mental Disorder: From Modeling Syndromes to Modeling Endophenotypes.Hein van den Berg - 2022 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 44 (4):1-26.
    This paper provides a historical analysis of a shift in the way animal models of mental disorders were conceptualized: the shift from the mid-twentieth-century view, adopted by some, that animal models model syndromes classified in manuals such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), to the later widespread view that animal models model component parts of psychiatric syndromes. I argue that in the middle of the twentieth century the attempt to maximize the face validity of animal models (...)
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  24. Edmond Goblot’s (1858–1935) Selected Effects Theory of Function: A Reappraisal.Justin Garson - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):1210-1220.
    At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French philosopher of science Edmond Goblot wrote three prescient papers on function and teleology. He advanced the remarkable thesis that functions are, as a matter of conceptual analysis, selected effects. He also argued that “selection” must be understood broadly to include both evolutionary natural selection and intelligent design. Here, I do three things. First, I give an overview of Goblot’s thought. Second, I identify his core thesis about function. Third, I argue that, (...)
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  25. Ageing and the goal of evolution.Justin Garson - 2021 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (1):1-16.
    There is a certain metaphor that has enjoyed tremendous longevity in the evolution of ageing literature. According to this metaphor, nature has a certain goal or purpose, the perpetuation of the species, or, alternatively, the reproductive success of the individual. In relation to this goal, the individual organism has a function, job, or task, namely, to breed and, in some species, to raise its brood to maturity. On this picture, those who cannot, or can no longer, reproduce are somehow invisible (...)
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  26. Ein letzter Gigant der Wissenschaft.Schiemann Gregor - 2021 - Physik Journal 2021 (10):29-34.
    Hermann von Helmholtz hat als Naturforscher sowohl die Physik als auch die Physiologie um eine beeindruckende Anzahl grundlegender Erkenntnisse bereichert, ihr heutiges Selbstverständnis entscheidend mitgeprägt, ihre Verfahren auf neue Gegenstandsbereiche angewendet und war führend an ihrem institutionellen Ausbau zu Laborwissenschaften beteiligt.
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  27. The molecular vista: current perspectives on molecules and life in the twentieth century.Mathias Grote, Lisa Onaga, Angela N. H. Creager, Soraya de Chadarevian, Daniel Liu, Gina Surita & Sarah E. Tracy - 2021 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (1):1-18.
    This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to (...)
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  28. Invention of a historical puzzle: Darwin’s Procrastination.Mehmet Cem Kamözüt - 2021 - POSSEIBLE: JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 2 (10):118-139.
    Much ink has been spilled to explain why Darwin avoided publishing his views for many years. Although a general consensus was never achieved on any one reason, not much doubt has been raised as to the existence of such a delay. In this article I argue that there was no delay. Darwin published his views as soon as he developed a defensible theory. I argue that the appearance of a delay emerged as a consequence of reading Darwin out of context. (...)
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  29. Unsystematic Vitality: From Early Modern Beeswarms to Contemporary Swarm Intelligence.Sylvie Kleiman-Lafon & Charles T. Wolfe - 2021 - In Peter Fratzl, Michael Friedman, Karin Krauthausen & Wolfgang Schäffner (eds.), Active Materials. De Gruyter. pp. 259-298.
    The eighteenth century was the century of self-organization, but also that of materialism, inasmuch as it was then that certain thinkers proclaimed themselves to be materialists (rather than just being labelled as such by enemies of various sorts). If one seeks to read these two features – one hesitates to call them ‘facts’ or ‘events’ – together, one arrives rather quickly at an influential metaphor, the beeswarm. But a metaphor of or for what? Irreducible organic unity, most broadly – spelled (...)
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  30. Epigenesis in Kant.Jennifer Mensch - 2021 - In The Cambridge Kant Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 173-174.
    Kant’s use of epigenesis differed according to the context within his remarks were made and can be seen to be falling within three main types of consideration. The first of these considered epigenesis as a theory of biological generation. A second group of related uses of the term epigenesis consider whether the biological account impacts discussions of the transference of soul from parent to child. The third type of consideration stems from Kant’s efforts, primarily in the 1770s, to use epigenesis (...)
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  31. Organism in Kant.Jennifer Mensch - 2021 - In The Cambridge Kant Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 320-322.
    Kant was well versed in many of the debates taking place in the life sciences during his day. One of the more central areas of contention concerned the proper means for discriminating between material bodies composed of organised parts (like clocks or automatons) and living material bodies composed of organised parts (like plants and animals). For many theorists, it seemed clear that the physically organised structure of a body was distinct from any vital forces responsible for the life processes or (...)
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  32. Generation in Kant.Jennifer Mensch - 2021 - In The Cambridge Kant Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 197-199.
    There is a collection of words being used by Kant when it comes to his discussion of the various processes associated with the English word “generation.” The closest German word, Erzeugung, can be used either generically—to form an idea, to create an effect or event—or as part of a scientific theory. Kant used Erzeugung in both senses repeatedly across his corpus and referred from his earliest works to scientific theories regarding cosmological formation, the generation of earthquakes and volcanoes, and the (...)
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  33. The Cyclical Return of the IQ Controversy: Revisiting the Lessons of the Resolution on Genetics, Race and Intelligence.Davide Serpico - 2021 - Journal of the History of Biology 54 (2):199-228.
    In 1976, the Genetics Society of America published a document entitled “Resolution of Genetics, Race, and Intelligence.” This document laid out the Society’s position in the IQ controversy, particularly that on scientific and ethical questions involving the genetics of intellectual differences between human populations. Since the GSA was the largest scientific society of geneticists in the world, many expected the document to be of central importance in settling the controversy. Unfortunately, the Resolution had surprisingly little influence on the discussion. In (...)
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  34. Mendel on Developmental Information.Yafeng Shan - 2021 - In Chris Meyns (ed.), Information and the History of Philosophy. London: Routledge. pp. 262-280.
    It has been widely received that one of Gregor Mendel’s most important contributions to the history of genetics is his novel work on developmental information (for example, the proposal of the famous Mendelian ratios like 1:2:1, 3:1, and 9:3:3:1). This view is well evidenced by the fact that much of early Mendelians’ work in the 1900s focuses on the retrodiction (viz. the re-analysis of the pre-exist data with Mendel’s approach). However, there is no consensus on what Mendel meant by development (...)
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  35. Beyond Mendelism and Biometry.Yafeng Shan - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 89 (C):155-163.
    Historiographical analyses of the development of genetics in the first decade of the 20th century have been to a great extent framed in the context of the Mendelian-Biometrician controversy. Much has been discussed on the nature, origin, development, and legacy of the controversy. However, such a framework is becoming less useful and fruitful. This paper challenges the traditional historiography framed by the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction. It argues that the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction fails to reflect the theoretical and methodological diversity in the controversy. (...)
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  36. Dreaming of a Universal Biology: Synthetic Biology and the Origins of Life.Massimiliano Simons - 2021 - Hyle: International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry 27:91-116.
    Synthetic biology aims to synthesize novel biological systems or redesign existing ones. The field has raised numerous philosophical questions, but most especially what is novel to this field. In this article I argue for a novel take, since the dominant ways to understand synthetic biology’s specificity each face problems. Inspired by the examination of the work of a number of chemists, I argue that synthetic biology differentiates itself by a new regime of articulation, i.e. a new way of articulating the (...)
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  37. Alexander von Humboldt on Evolution of Natural Species.Bogdana Stamenković - 2021 - In Thomas McCloughlin (ed.), The Nature of Science in Biology: A Resource for Educators. Dublin, Ireland: pp. 205-214.
    The aim of this paper is to analyse Alexander von Humboldt's views on the theory of evolution and tackle the following question: Can Humboldt be considered an evolutionist? I seek to show that Humboldt acknowledges three essential Darwinian elements of the theory of evolution: fossil records, the geographical distribution of species and the struggle for survival. Further, Humboldt recognises a special relation between the natural environment and organic life, and understands it in light of his naturalistic holism. This holism reveals (...)
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  38. Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics.Robert A. Wilson - 2021 - In Maria Kronfeldner (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization. New York, NY, USA: pp. 173-186.
    This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.
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  39. Eugenics Offended.Robert A. Wilson - 2021 - Monash Bioethics Review 39 (2):169-176.
    This commentary continues an exchange on eugenics in Monash Bioethics Review between Anomaly (2018), Wilson (2019), and Veit, Anomaly, Agar, Singer, Fleischman, and Minerva (2021). The eponymous question, “Can ‘Eugenics’ be Defended?”, is multiply ambiguous and does not receive a clear answer from Veit et al.. Despite their stated desire to move beyond mere semantics to matters of substance, Veit et al. concentrate on several uses of the term “eugenics” that pull in opposite directions. I argue, first, that Veit et (...)
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  40. Piezas owenianas en el rompecabezas darwiniano.Daniel Blanco & Santiago Ginnobili - 2020 - Asclepio 72 (2):1-16.
    En este trabajo discutimos la extensión de la influencia que el pensamiento de Richard Owen tuvo sobre el de Charles Darwin. Además, se intentará mostrar lo heterogéneo de tal influencia, que va desde teorías específicas a giros retóricos. Esta influencia es en muchos casos subestimada, dando la sensación de que la novedad darwiniana consistió únicamente en mirar con ojos desprejuiciados lo que los otros no habían visto. Esta visión resulta injusta con Owen, y también con el esfuerzo conceptual llevado adelante (...)
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  41. Analytic philosophy for biomedical research: the imperative of applying yesterday's timeless messages to today's impasses.Sepehr Ehsani - 2020 - In P. Glauner & P. Plugmann (eds.), Innovative Technologies for Market Leadership - Investing in the Future. Springer. pp. 167-200.
    The mantra that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (attributed to the computer scientist Alan Kay) exemplifies some of the expectations from the technical and innovative sides of biomedical research at present. However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. The proposal in (...)
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  42. Ontology and values anchor indigenous and grey nomenclatures: a case study in lichen naming practices among the Samí, Sherpa, Scots, and Okanagan.Catherine Kendig - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 84:101340.
    Ethnobotanical research provides ample justification for comparing diverse biological nomenclatures and exploring ways that retain alternative naming practices. However, how (and whether) comparison of nomenclatures is possible remains a subject of discussion. The comparison of diverse nomenclatural practices introduces a suite of epistemic and ontological difficulties and considerations. Different nomenclatures may depend on whether the communities using them rely on formalized naming conventions; cultural or spiritual valuations; or worldviews. Because of this, some argue that the different naming practices may not (...)
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  43. Monsters in early modern philosophy.Silvia Manzo & Charles T. Wolfe - 2020 - Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences.
    Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a “long” early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffering from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to “freak occurrences” like Mary Toft’s supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the early eighteenth-century (Todd (...)
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  44. On Being the Right Size, Revisited: The Problem with Engineering Metaphors in Molecular Biology.Daniel J. Nicholson - 2020 - In Sune Holm & Maria Serban (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on the Engineering Approach in Biology: Living Machines? London, UK: Routledge. pp. 40-68.
    In 1926, Haldane published an essay titled 'On Being the Right Size' in which he argued that the structure, function, and behavior of an organism are strongly conditioned by the physical forces that exert the greatest impact at the scale at which it exists. This chapter puts Haldane’s insight to work in the context of contemporary cell and molecular biology. Owing to their minuscule size, cells and molecules are subject to very different forces than macroscopic organisms. In a sense, macroscopic (...)
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  45. The Unfolding of a New Vision of Life, Cosmos and Evolution.Agustin Ostachuk - 2020 - Ludus Vitalis 28 (53):81-83.
    Has science already answered the fundamental questions about the concepts of Life, Cosmos and Evolution? Has science not relegated these fundamental questions by following up on more immediate, “useful” and practical endeavors that ultimately ensure that the wheel of capitalism keeps spinning in its frantic search for material and economic progress? There is something terribly wrong with the current theory of evolution, understood as the Darwinian theory with its successive versions and extensions. The concept of natural selection, the cornerstone of (...)
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  46. A Theory of Evolution as a Process of Unfolding.Agustin Ostachuk - 2020 - Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 16 (1):347-379.
    In this work I propose a theory of evolution as a process of unfolding. This theory is based on four logically concatenated principles. The principle of evolutionary order establishes that the more complex cannot be generated from the simpler. The principle of origin establishes that there must be a maximum complexity that originates the others by logical deduction. Finally, the principle of unfolding and the principle of actualization guarantee the development of the evolutionary process from the simplest to the most (...)
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  47. Contrastando reconstrucciones con herramientas computacionales: una aplicación a la cladística.Ariel Jonathan Roffé - 2020 - Dissertation, Universidad de Buenos Aires (Uba)
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  48. Theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition.Hein van den Berg - 2020 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 42 (3):1-35.
    Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon’s mechanism, (ii) Reimarus’ theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying their position. These theoretical (...)
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  49. Axiomatic Natural Philosophy and the Emergence of Biology as a Science.Hein van den Berg & Boris Demarest - 2020 - Journal of the History of Biology 53 (3):379-422.
    Ernst Mayr argued that the emergence of biology as a special science in the early nineteenth century was possible due to the demise of the mathematical model of science and its insistence on demonstrative knowledge. More recently, John Zammito has claimed that the rise of biology as a special science was due to a distinctive experimental, anti-metaphysical, anti-mathematical, and anti-rationalist strand of thought coming from outside of Germany. In this paper we argue that this narrative neglects the important role played (...)
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  50. Evaluating evidential pluralism in epidemiology: mechanistic evidence in exposome research.Stefano Canali - 2019 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 41 (1):4.
    In current philosophical discussions on evidence in the medical sciences, epidemiology has been used to exemplify a specific version of evidential pluralism. According to this view, known as the Russo–Williamson Thesis, evidence of both difference-making and mechanisms is produced to make causal claims in the health sciences. In this paper, I present an analysis of data and evidence in epidemiological practice, with a special focus on research on the exposome, and I cast doubt on the extent to which evidential pluralism (...)
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