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  1. Intentional systems in cognitive ethology: The 'panglossian paradigm' defended.Daniel C. Dennett - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):343-90.
    Ethologists and others studying animal behavior in a spirit are in need of a descriptive language and method that are neither anachronistically bound by behaviorist scruples nor prematurely committed to particular Just such an interim descriptive method can be found in intentional system theory. The use of intentional system theory is illustrated with the case of the apparently communicative behavior of vervet monkeys. A way of using the theory to generate data - including usable, testable data - is sketched. The (...)
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  • A matter of individuality.David L. Hull - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (3):335-360.
    Biological species have been treated traditionally as spatiotemporally unrestricted classes. If they are to perform the function which they do in the evolutionary process, they must be spatiotemporally localized individuals, historical entities. Reinterpreting biological species as historical entities solves several important anomalies in biology, in philosophy of biology, and within philosophy itself. It also has important implications for any attempt to present an "evolutionary" analysis of science and for sciences such as anthropology which are devoted to the study of single (...)
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  • Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures.David M. Buss - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):1-14.
    Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from (...)
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  • Evolution, population thinking, and essentialism.Elliott Sober - 1980 - Philosophy of Science 47 (3):350-383.
    Ernst Mayr has argued that Darwinian theory discredited essentialist modes of thought and replaced them with what he has called "population thinking". In this paper, I characterize essentialism as embodying a certain conception of how variation in nature is to be explained, and show how this conception was undermined by evolutionary theory. The Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary gradualism makes it impossible to say exactly where one species ends and another begins; such line-drawing problems are often taken to be the decisive (...)
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  • Who is a Modeler?Michael Weisberg - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2):207-233.
    Many standard philosophical accounts of scientific practice fail to distinguish between modeling and other types of theory construction. This failure is unfortunate because there are important contrasts among the goals, procedures, and representations employed by modelers and other kinds of theorists. We can see some of these differences intuitively when we reflect on the methods of theorists such as Vito Volterra and Linus Pauling on the one hand, and Charles Darwin and Dimitri Mendeleev on the other. Much of Volterra's and (...)
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  • Categories, life, and thinking.Michael T. Ghiselin - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):269-283.
    Classifying is a fundamental operation in the acquisition of knowledge. Taxonomic theory can help students of cognition, evolutionary psychology, ethology, anatomy, and sociobiology to avoid serious mistakes, both practical and theoretical. More positively, it helps in generating hypotheses useful to a wide range of disciplines. Composite wholes, such as species and societies, are “individuals” in the logical sense, and should not be treated as if they were classes. A group of analogous features is a natural kind, but a group of (...)
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  • Adaptability of innate motor patterns and motor control mechanisms.M. B. Berkinblit, A. G. Feldman & O. I. Fukson - 1986 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9 (4):585-599.
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  • Eliminative pluralism.Marc Ereshefsky - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (4):671-690.
    This paper takes up the cause of species pluralism. An argument for species pluralism is provided and standard monist objections to pluralism are answered. A new form of species pluralism is developed and shown to be an improvement over previous forms. This paper also offers a general foundation on which to base a pluralistic approach to biological classification.
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  • Chance and natural selection.John Beatty - 1984 - Philosophy of Science 51 (2):183-211.
    Among the liveliest disputes in evolutionary biology today are disputes concerning the role of chance in evolution--more specifically, disputes concerning the relative evolutionary importance of natural selection vs. so-called "random drift". The following discussion is an attempt to sort out some of the broad issues involved in those disputes. In the first half of this paper, I try to explain the differences between evolution by natural selection and evolution by random drift. On some common construals of "natural selection", those two (...)
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  • Précis of The evolution of human sexuality.Donald Symons - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (2):171-181.
    Patterns in the data on human sexuality support the hypothesis that the bases of sexual emotions are products of natural selection. Most generally, the universal existence of laws, rules, and gossip about sex, the pervasive interest in other people's sex lives, the widespread seeking of privacy for sexual intercourse, and the secrecy that normally permeates sexual conduct imply a history of reproductive competition. More specifically, the typical differences between men and women in sexual feelings can be explained most parsimoniously as (...)
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  • Species pluralism and anti-realism.Marc Ereshefsky - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (1):103-120.
    Species pluralism gives us reason to doubt the existence of the species category. The problem is not that species concepts are chosen according to our interests or that pluralism and the desire for hierarchical classifications are incompatible. The problem is that the various taxa we call 'species' lack a common unifying feature.
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  • Darwin was a teleologist.James G. Lennox - 1993 - Biology and Philosophy 8 (4):409-421.
    It is often claimed that one of Darwin''s chief accomplishments was to provide biology with a non-teleological explanation of adaptation. A number of Darwin''s closest associates, however, and Darwin himself, did not see it that way. In order to assess whether Darwin''s version of evolutionary theory does or does not employ teleological explanation, two of his botanical studies are examined. The result of this examination is that Darwin sees selection explanations of adaptations as teleological explanations. The confusion in the nineteenth (...)
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  • Lloyd Morgan's canon in evolutionary context.Michael T. Ghiselin - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):362-363.
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  • Darwin on Variation and Heredity.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2000 - Journal of the History of Biology 33 (3):425-455.
    Darwin's ideas on variation, heredity, and development differ significantly from twentieth-century views. First, Darwin held that environmental changes, acting either on the reproductive organs or the body, were necessary to generate variation. Second, heredity was a developmental, not a transmissional, process; variation was a change in the developmental process of change. An analysis of Darwin's elaboration and modification of these two positions from his early notebooks (1836-1844) to the last edition of the /Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication/ (1875) (...)
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  • Elementary errors about evolution.Richard C. Lewontin - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):367-368.
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  • Mate selection: Economics and affection.Kim Wallen - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):37-38.
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  • Pick your poison: Historicism, essentialism, and emergentism in the definition of species.Arthur L. Caplan - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):285-286.
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  • Missing Concepts in Natural Selection Theory Reconstructions.Santiago Ginnobili - 2016 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 38 (3):1-33.
    The concept of fitness has generated a lot of discussion in philosophy of biology. There is, however, relative agreement about the need to distinguish at least two uses of the term: ecological fitness on the one hand, and population genetics fitness on the other. The goal of this paper is to give an explication of the concept of ecological fitness by providing a reconstruction of the theory of natural selection in which this concept was framed, that is, based on the (...)
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  • Affordances and Landscapes: Overcoming the Nature–Culture Dichotomy through Niche Construction Theory.Manuel Heras-Escribano & Manuel De Pinedo-García - 2018 - Frontiers in Psychology 8:294308.
    In this paper we reject the nature–culture dichotomy by means of the idea of affordance or possibility for action, which has important implications for landscape theory. Our hypothesis is that, just as the idea of affordance can serve to overcome the subjective–objective dichotomy, the ideas of landscape and ecological niche, properly defined, would allow us to also transcend the nature–culture dichotomy. First, we introduce an overview of landscape theory, emphasizing processual landscape theory as the most suitable approach for satisfying both (...)
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  • Science as an international system.Arthur C. Danto - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):359-360.
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  • A better way to deal with selection.B. F. Skinner - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):377-378.
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  • (1 other version)Are species intelligent?: Not a yes or no question.Jonathan Schull - 1990 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (1):63-75.
    Plant and animal species are information-processing entities of such complexity, integration, and adaptive competence that it may be scientifically fruitful to consider them intelligent. The possibility arises from the analogy between learning and evolution, and from recent developments in evolutionary science, psychology and cognitive science. Species are now described as spatiotemporally localized individuals in an expanded hierarchy of biological entities. Intentional and cognitive abilities are now ascribed to animal, human, and artificial intelligence systems that process information adaptively, and that manifest (...)
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  • Typology reconsidered: Two doctrines on the history of evolutionary biology.Ron Amundson - 1998 - Biology and Philosophy 13 (2):153-177.
    Recent historiography of 19th century biology supports the revision of two traditional doctrines about the history of biology. First, the most important and widespread biological debate around the time of Darwin was not evolution versus creation, but biological functionalism versus structuralism. Second, the idealist and typological structuralist theories of the time were not particularly anti-evolutionary. Typological theories provided argumentation and evidence that was crucial to the refutation of Natural Theological creationism. The contrast between functionalist and structuralist approaches to biology continues (...)
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  • Philosophical aspects of the group selection controversy.John Cassidy - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (4):575-594.
    This article is primarily a study of the group selection controversy, with special emphasis on the period from 1962 to the present, and the rise of inclusive fitness theory. Interest is focused on the relations between individual fitness theory and other fitness theories and on the methodological imperatives used in the controversy over the status of these theories. An appendix formalizes the notion of "assertive part" which is used in the informal discussion of the methodological imperatives elicited from the controversy.
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  • Group selection and methodological individualism: A criticism of Watkins.Edward Reed - 1978 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 29 (3):256-262.
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  • The psychology of human mate preferences.Donald Symons - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):34-35.
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  • A succession of paradigms in ecology: Essentialism to materialism and probabilism.Daniel Simberloff - 1980 - Synthese 43 (1):3 - 39.
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  • Cognitive ethology: Theory or poetry?Jonathan Bennett - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):356-358.
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  • Intersocietal variation in the mate preferences of males and females.Norval D. Glenn - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):21-23.
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  • Natural kinds and natural kind terms.Kathrin Koslicki - 2008 - Philosophy Compass 3 (4):789-802.
    The aim of this article is to illustrate how a belief in the existence of kinds may be justified for the particular case of natural kinds: particularly noteworthy in this respect is the weight borne by scientific natural kinds (e.g., physical, chemical, and biological kinds) in (i) inductive arguments; (ii) the laws of nature; and (iii) causal explanations. It is argued that biological taxa are properly viewed as kinds as well, despite the fact that they have been by some alleged (...)
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  • Mating preferences surveys: Ethnographic follow-up would be a good next step.William Irons - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):24-24.
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  • Homo sapiens: A good fit to theory, but posing some enigmas.Janet L. Leonard - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):26-27.
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  • The sociobiology of human mate preference: On testing evolutionary hypotheses.Nadav Nur - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):28-29.
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  • Missing link in mate preference studies: Reproduction.Brian A. Gladue - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):21-21.
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  • Darwin’s solution to the species problem.Marc Ereshefsky - 2010 - Synthese 175 (3):405 - 425.
    Biologists and philosophers that debate the existence of the species category fall into two camps. Some believe that the species category does not exist and the term 'species' should be eliminated from biology. Others believe that with new biological insights or the application of philosophical ideas, we can be confident that the species category exists. This paper offers a different approach to the species problem. We should be skeptical of the species category, but not skeptical of the existence of those (...)
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  • Darwinism versus neo-Darwinism in the study of human mate preferences.Michael T. Ghiselin - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):20-20.
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  • Mating behavior: Moves of mind or molecules?Helmuth Nyborg & Charlotte Boeggild - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):29-30.
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  • Chance Variation: Darwin on Orchids.John Beatty - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):629-641.
    How, according to Darwin, does chance variation affect evolutionary outcomes? In his 1866 book, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, Darwin developed an argument that played an important role in his overall case for evolution by natural selection, as articulated in later editions of the Origin. This argument also figured significantly in Darwin's reflections on the theological dimensions of evolution by natural selection.
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  • Species as individuals: Logical, biological, and philosophical problems.Michael Ruse - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):299-300.
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  • Steps toward an ethological science.Mark S. Seidenberg - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):377-377.
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  • Evolutionary causation: how proximate is ultimate?Richard E. Whalen - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (2):202-203.
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  • The biological reification of race.Lisa Gannett - 2004 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (2):323-345.
    A consensus view appears to prevail among academics from diverse disciplines that biological races do not exist, at least in humans, and that race -concepts and race -objects are socially constructed. The consensus view has been challenged recently by Robin O. Andreasen's cladistic account of biological race. This paper argues that from a scientific viewpoint there are methodological, empirical, and conceptual problems with Andreasen's position, and that from a philosophical perspective Andreasen's adherence to rigid dichotomies between science and society, facts (...)
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  • Units “of” selection: The end of “of”?F. J. Odling-Smee & H. C. Plotkin - 1981 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4 (2):295-296.
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  • What are the building blocks of the frog's wiping reflex?Ilan Golani - 1986 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9 (4):607-608.
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  • Fitness, function, fidelity, fornication, and feminine philandering.Jack P. Hailman - 1980 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3 (2):189-189.
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  • Darwin’s Conversion: The Beagle Voyage and its Aftermath.Frank J. Sulloway - 1982 - Journal of the History of Biology 15 (3):325-396.
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  • Thinking about animal thoughts.Donald R. Griffin - 1983 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 6 (3):364-364.
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  • Answers to these comments.Ernst Mayr - 1987 - Biology and Philosophy 2 (2):212-225.
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  • Darwin's language may seem teleological, but his thinking is another matter.Michael T. Ghiselin - 1994 - Biology and Philosophy 9 (4):489-492.
    Darwin''s biology was teleological only if the term teleology is defined in a manner that fails to recognize his contribution to the metaphysics and epistemology of modern science. His use of teleological metaphors in a strictly teleonomic context is irrelevant to the meaning of his discourse. The myth of Darwin''s alleged teleology is partly due to misinterpretations of discussions about whether morphology should be a purely formal science. Merely rejecting such notions as special creation and vitalism does not prevent the (...)
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  • Towards a definition of living systems: A theory of ecological support for behavior.Edward S. Reed & Rebecca K. Jones - 1977 - Acta Biotheoretica 26 (3):153-163.
    It is proposed that the Darwinian theoretical approach and account of living systems has not yet been clearly given. A first approximation to this is attempted, focussing on behavior in evolving environments. A theoretical terminology is defined emphasizing the mutuality of organism and environment and the existence of biologically theoretical entities.
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