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Walsh on Causes and Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Robert Northcott
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Abstract

Denis Walsh has written a striking new defense in this journal of the statisticalist (i.e., noncausalist) position regarding the forces of evolution. I defend the causalist view against his new objections. I argue that the heart of the issue lies in the nature of nonadditive causation. Detailed consideration of that turns out to defuse Walsh's ‘description-dependence’ critique of causalism. Nevertheless, the critique does suggest a basis for reconciliation between the two competing views.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 457 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

This article began life as a commentary on Walsh's article at the Kline workshop in philosophy of biology that took place in September 2007 at the University of Missouri–Columbia. I thank Andre Ariew for organizing that workshop and Andre and the other participants for stimulating discussion at it, some of which I have cited here. I also benefited from discussing Walsh's article at the St. Louis philosophy of science reading group and from several comments by an anonymous referee for this journal. Finally, I would especially like to thank Denis Walsh himself.

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