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  1. Booknotes.R. M. - 1990 - Biology and Philosophy 5 (4):503-508.
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  • A Brief (Hi)Story of Just-So Stories in Evolutionary Science.Michal Hubálek - 2020 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51 (5):447-468.
    In this essay, I examine the usage of the term “just-so story.” I attempt to show that just-so storytelling can be seen as an epistemic concept that, in various ways, tackles the epistemological an...
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  • Colleagues in conflict: An 'in vivo' analysis of the sociobiology controversy. [REVIEW]Ullica Segerstrale - 1986 - Biology and Philosophy 1 (1):53-87.
    Edward O. Wilson's forays into human sociobiology have been the target of persistent, vehement attack by his Harvard colleague in evolutionary biology, Richard C. Lewontin. Through examination of existing documents in the case, together with in-depth personal interviews of Wilson, Lewontin, and other biologists, the reasons for Wilson's stance and Lewontin's criticisms are uncovered. It is argued that the dispute is not primarily personally or politically motivated, but involves a conflict between long-term scientific-cum-moral agendas, with the reductionist program as a (...)
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  • The Genomic Challenge to Adaptationism.Sahotra Sarkar - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (3):505-536.
    Since the late 1990s, the characterization of complete DNA sequences for a large and taxonomically diverse set of species has continued to gain in speed and accuracy. Sequence analyses have indicated a strikingly baroque structure for most eukaryotic genomes, with multiple repeats of DNA sequences and with very little of the DNA specifying proteins. Much of the DNA in these genomes has no known function. These results have generated strong interest in the factors that govern the evolution of genome architecture. (...)
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  • Edward O. Wilson and the Organicist Tradition.Abraham H. Gibson - 2013 - Journal of the History of Biology 46 (4):599-630.
    Edward O. Wilson’s recent decision to abandon kin selection theory has sent shockwaves throughout the biological sciences. Over the past two years, more than a hundred biologists have signed letters protesting his reversal. Making sense of Wilson’s decision and the controversy it has spawned requires familiarity with the historical record. This entails not only examining the conditions under which kin selection theory first emerged, but also the organicist tradition against which it rebelled. In similar fashion, one must not only examine (...)
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  • Revisiting the Left-Wing Response to Sociobiology: The Case of Finland in a European Context.Antti Lepistö - 2015 - Journal of the History of Biology 48 (1):99-136.
    This article revisits the left-wing response to sociobiology in the 1970s and 1980s by examining the sociobiology debate in Finland in a larger European context. It argues that the Finnish academic left’s response to sociobiology represents a “third way” alongside the purely negative, often Marxist denial of biology’s relevance, which characterized the left’s response to sociobiology in many European countries such as Hungary and Sweden, and alongside the disregard that sociobiology confronted in most parts of Eastern Europe, as well as (...)
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  • Richard Lewontin and Theodosius Dobzhansky: Genetics, Race, and the Anxiety of Influence.David Depew - 2024 - Biological Theory 19 (3):151-167.
    I reconstruct the relationship between the evolutionary geneticists Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) and Richard Lewontin (1929–2021). Using archival research and published texts, I show that Lewontin inherited his dissertation director’s research program as well as his “biology of democracy.” He did so in circumstances in which the molecular revolution in genetics was threatening both Dobzhansky’s science and his anti-racist social ideals. Lewontin’s sometimes rocky relationship with the person he called “my professor” sprang from his perception that Dobzhansky was not up to (...)
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  • Criticism, commitment, and the growth of human sociobiology.Harmon R. Holcomb - 1987 - Biology and Philosophy 2 (1):43-63.
    The fundamental unit of assessment in the sociobiology debate is neither a field nor a theory, but a framework of group commitments. Recourse to the framework concept is motivated, in general, by post-Kuhnian philosophy of scientific change and, in particular, by the dispute between E. O. Wilson and R. C. Lewontin. The framework concept is explicated in terms of commitments about problems, domain, disciplinary relations, exemplars, and performance evaluations. One upshot is that debate over such charges as genetic determinism, reductionism, (...)
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  • The myth of genetic enhancement.Philip M. Rosoff - 2012 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 33 (3):163-178.
    The ongoing revolution in molecular genetics has led many to speculate that one day we will be able to change the expression or phenotype of numerous complex traits to improve ourselves in many different ways. The prospect of genetic enhancements has generated heated controversy, with proponents advocating research and implementation, with caution advised for concerns about justice, and critics tending to see the prospect of genetic enhancements as an assault on human freedom and human nature. Both camps base their arguments (...)
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  • Task Allocation and the Logic of Research Questions: How Ants Challenge Human Sociobiology.Ryan Ketcham - 2019 - Biological Theory 14 (1):52-68.
    After biologist Deborah Gordon made a series of experimental discoveries in the 1980s, she argued that a change in terminology regarding the division of labor among castes of specialists was needed. Gordon’s investigations of the interactive effects of ants in colonies led her to believe that the established approach Edward O. Wilson had pioneered was biased in a way that made some alternative candidate adaptive explanations invisible. Gordon argued that this was because the term “division of labor” implied a division (...)
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  • Revelation and Heresy in Sociobiology: a Review Essay : Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. Gregory, Michael S., Anita Silvers, and Diane Sutch, eds. Sociobiology and Human Nature. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1978. Caplan, Arthur L., ed. The Sociobiology Debate: Readings on Ethical and Scientific Issues. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1978. [REVIEW]Alexander J. Morin - 1979 - Science, Technology and Human Values 4 (2):24-35.
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