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  1. Essay Review: Sociobiology: Twenty-Five Years Later. [REVIEW]Edward O. Wilson - 1975 - Journal of the History of Biology 33 (3):577-584.
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  • Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915.Morton G. White - 1945 - Journal of the History of Ideas 6 (1):119.
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  • The Selfish Gene. [REVIEW]Gunther S. Stent & Richard Dawkins - 1977 - Hastings Center Report 7 (6):33.
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  • Darwin’s analogy between artificial and natural selection: how does it go?Susan G. Sterrett - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (1):151-168.
    View/download or read postprint via a streaming viewer with the turning page feature in SOAR, or click on the DOI link to access the publisher's copy of this article.
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  • Darwin's analogy between artificial and natural selection: how does it go?Susan G. Sterrett - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 33 (1):151-168.
    The analogy Darwin drew between artificial and natural selection in "On the Origin of Species" has a detailed structure that has not been appreciated. In Darwin’s analogy, the kind of artificial selection called Methodical selection is analogous to the principle of divergence in nature, and the kind of artificial selection called Unconscious selection is analogous to the principle of extinction in nature. This paper argues that it is the analogy between these two different principles familiar from his studies of artificial (...)
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  • An objection to the memetic approach to culture.Dan Sperber - 2001 - In Robert Aunger (ed.), Darwinizing Culture. pp. 162–73.
    This chapter determines a major empirical hurdle for any future discipline of memetics. It mainly shows that one can find very similar copies of some cultural item, link these copies through a causal chain of events which faithfully reproduced those items, and nevertheless not have an example of memetic inheritance. In addition, the stability of cultural patterns is proof that fidelity in copying is high despite individual variations. It is also believed that what is offered as an explanation is precisely (...)
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  • Can biology be an exact science?J. J. C. Smart - 1959 - Synthese 11 (4):359 - 368.
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  • Fitness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).A. Rosenberg & F. Bouchard - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web 17 (8):457-473.
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  • Fitness.Alexander Rosenberg - 1983 - Journal of Philosophy 80 (8):457-473.
    The diversity, complexity and adaptation of the biological realm is evident. Until Darwin, the best explanation for these three features of the biological was the conclusion of the “argument from design.” Darwin's theory of natural selection provides an explanation of all three of these features of the biological realm without adverting to some mysterious designing entity. But this explanation's success turns on the meaning of its central explanatory concept, ‘fitness’. Moreover, since Darwinian theory provides the resources for a purely causal (...)
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  • Fitness.Alexander Rosenberg - 1983 - Journal of Philosophy.
    The diversity, complexity and adaptation of the biological realm is evident. Until Darwin, the best explanation for these three features of the biological was the conclusion of the “argument from design.” Darwin's theory of natural selection provides an explanation of all three of these features of the biological realm without adverting to some mysterious designing entity. But this explanation's success turns on the meaning of its central explanatory concept, ‘fitness’. Moreover, since Darwinian theory provides the resources for a purely causal (...)
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  • Business Ethics as Self-Regulation: Why Principles that Ground Regulations Should Be Used to Ground Beyond-Compliance Norms as Well. [REVIEW]Wayne Norman - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 102 (S1):43-57.
    Theories of business ethics or corporate responsibility tend to focus on justifying obligations that go above and beyond what is required by law. This article examines the curious fact that most business ethics scholars use concepts, principles, and normative methods for identifying and justifying these beyond-compliance obligations that are very different from the ones that are used to set the levels of regulations themselves. Its modest proposal—a plea for a research agenda, really—is that we could reduce this normative asymmetry by (...)
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  • The propensity interpretation of fitness.Susan K. Mills & John H. Beatty - 1979 - Philosophy of Science 46 (2):263-286.
    The concept of "fitness" is a notion of central importance to evolutionary theory. Yet the interpretation of this concept and its role in explanations of evolutionary phenomena have remained obscure. We provide a propensity interpretation of fitness, which we argue captures the intended reference of this term as it is used by evolutionary theorists. Using the propensity interpretation of fitness, we provide a Hempelian reconstruction of explanations of evolutionary phenomena, and we show why charges of circularity which have been levelled (...)
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  • Towards a unified science of cultural evolution.Alex Mesoudi, Andrew Whiten & Kevin N. Laland - 2006 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (4):329-347.
    We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to the study of cultural evolution. Existing approaches within anthropology and archaeology demonstrate a good match with (...)
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  • Foresight in cultural evolution.Alex Mesoudi - 2008 - Biology and Philosophy 23 (2):243-255.
    Critics of Darwinian cultural evolution frequently assert that whereas biological evolution is blind and undirected, cultural change is directed or guided by people who possess foresight, thereby invalidating any Darwinian analysis of culture. Here I show this argument to be erroneous and unsupported in several respects. First, critics commonly conflate human foresight with supernatural clairvoyance, resulting in the premature rejection of Darwinian cultural evolution on false logical grounds. Second, the presence of foresight is perfectly consistent with Darwinian evolution, and is (...)
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  • Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process Darwinnovation!Tim Lewens - 2002 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 33 (1):195-203.
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  • Seven types of adaptationism.Tim Lewens - 2009 - Biology and Philosophy 24 (2):161-182.
    Godfrey-Smith ( 2001 ) has distinguished three types of adaptationism. This article builds on his analysis, and revises it in places, by distinguishing seven varieties of adaptationism. This taxonomy allows us to clarify what is at stake in debates over adaptationism, and it also helps to cement the importance of Gould and Lewontin’s ‘Spandrels’ essay. Some adaptationists have suggested that their essay does not offer any coherent alternative to the adaptationist programme: it consists only in an exhortation to test adaptationist (...)
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  • Is cultural evolution Lamarckian?Maria E. Kronfeldner - 2007 - Biology and Philosophy 22 (4):493-512.
    The article addresses the question whether culture evolves in a Lamarckian manner. I highlight three central aspects of a Lamarckian concept of evolution: the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the transformational pattern of evolution, and the concept of directed changes. A clear exposition of these aspects shows that a system can be a Darwinian variational system instead of a Lamarckian transformational one, even if it is based on inheritance of acquired characteristics and/or on Lamarckian directed changes. On this basis, I apply (...)
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  • The principles of sociology.Herbert Spencer - 1914 - New York and London,: D. Appleton and company. Edited by F. Howard Collins.
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  • Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy.Joseph Heath, Jeffrey Moriarty & Wayne Norman - 2010 - Business Ethics Quarterly 20 (3):427-452.
    ABSTRACT:There is considerable overlap between the interests of business ethicists and those of political philosophers. Questions about the moral justifiability of the capitalist system, the basis of property rights, and the problem of inequality in the distribution of income have been of central importance in both fields. However, political philosophers have developed, especially over the past four decades, a set of tools and concepts for addressing these questions that are in many ways quite distinctive. Most business ethicists, on the other (...)
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  • Adaptationism and the power of selection.Peter Godfrey-Smith - 1999 - Biology and Philosophy 14 (2):181-194.
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  • Darwin's Dangerous Idea.Daniel Dennett - 1994 - Behavior and Philosophy 24 (2):169-174.
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  • An evolutionary social science? A skeptic’s brief, theoretical and substantive.Joseph M. Bryant - 2004 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (4):451-492.
    So-called grand or paradigmatic theories—structural functionalism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, rational-choice theory—provide their proponents with a conceptual vocabulary and syntax that allows for the classification and configuring of wide ranges of phenomena. Advocates for any particular “analytical grammar” are accordingly prone to conflating the internal coherence of their paradigm—its integrated complex of definitions, axioms, and inferences—with a corresponding capacity for representational verisimilitude. The distinction between Theory-as-heuristic and Theory-as-imposition is of course difficult to negotiate in practice, given that empirical observation and measurement are (...)
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  • In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought.Carl N. Degler - 1991 - Oup Usa.
    In his historical perspective on the changes in scientific thought over the last 100 years, Carl N. Degler explores the study of social evolution and the ongoing search for human nature. In Search of Human Nature provides a detailed perspective on the reasons behind the shifting emphasis in social thought from biology, to culture, and again to biology. Degler examines why these changes took place, the evidence and people fostering these changes and why students of human nature decided to accept (...)
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  • On the origin of species.Charles Darwin - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Gillian Beer.
    The present edition provides a detailed and accessible discussion ofhis theories and adds an account of the immediate responses to the book on publication.
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  • The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme.S. J. Gould & R. C. Lewontin - 1994 - In Elliott Sober (ed.), Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. The Mit Press. Bradford Books. pp. 73-90.
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  • Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution.Peter J. Richerson & Robert Boyd - 2005 - Chicago University Press.
    Acknowledgments 1. Culture Is Essential 2. Culture Exists 3. Culture Evolves 4. Culture Is an Adaptation 5. Culture Is Maladaptive 6. Culture and Genes Coevolve 7. Nothing about Culture Makes Sense except in the Light of Evolution.
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  • The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm : a critique of the adaptationist programme.S. J. Gould & R. C. Lewontin - 2014 - In Francisco José Ayala & John C. Avise (eds.), Essential readings in evolutionary biology. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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  • Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.Edward O. Wilson - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
    welcomed by a new generation of students and scholars in all branches of learning.
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  • Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges.Tim Lewens - 2015 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Tim Lewens aims to understand what it means to take an evolutionary approach to cultural change, and why it is that these approaches are sometimes treated with suspicion. While making a case for the value of evolutionary thinking for students of culture, he shows why the concerns of sceptics should not dismissed as mere prejudice, confusion, or ignorance. Indeed, confusions about what evolutionary approaches entail are propagated by their proponents, as well as by their detractors. By taking seriously the problems (...)
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  • Adaptationism and Optimality.Steven Hecht Orzack & Elliott Sober (eds.) - 2001 - Cambridge University Press.
    The debate over the relative importance of natural selection as compared to other forces affecting the evolution of organisms is a long-standing and central controversy in evolutionary biology. The theory of adaptationism argues that natural selection contains sufficient explanatory power in itself to account for all evolution. However, there are differing views about the efficiency of the adaptation model of explanation. If the adaptationism theory is applied, are energy and resources being used to their optimum? This book presents an up-to-date (...)
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  • Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour.Kevin N. Laland & Gillian R. Brown - 2002 - Oxford University Press. Edited by Kevin N. Laland & Gillian R. Brown.
    This book asks whether evolution can help us to understand human behaviour and explores diverse evolutionary methods and arguments. It provides a short, readable introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. It is widely used in undergraduate courses around the world.
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  • Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science.Robert Aunger (ed.) - 2000 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science pits leading intellectuals, against each other to battle it out, in this, the first debate over 'memes'. With a foreword by Daniel Dennett, and contributions from Dan Sperber, David Hull, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a thrilling and challenging debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field, and for future research.
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  • Law, Legislation and Liberty. Vol. 1: Rules and Order.F. A. Hayek - 1973
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  • In defence of generalized Darwinism.Howard E. Aldrich, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, David L. Hull, Thorbjørn Knudsen, Joel Mokyr & Viktor J. Vanberg - 2008 - Journal of Evolutionary Economics 18:577-596.
    Darwin himself suggested the idea of generalizing the core Darwinian principles to cover the evolution of social entities. Also in the nineteenth century, influential social scientists proposed their extension to political society and economic institutions. Nevertheless, misunderstanding and misrepresentation have hindered the realization of the powerful potential in this longstanding idea. Some critics confuse generalization with analogy. Others mistakenly presume that generalizing Darwinism necessarily involves biological reductionism. This essay outlines the types of phenomena to which a generalized Darwinism applies, and (...)
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  • Three kinds of adaptationism.Peter Godfrey-Smith - unknown
    Debate about adaptationism in biology continues, in part because within “the” problem of assessing adaptationism, three distinct problems are mixed together. The three problems concern the assessment of three distinct adaptationist positions, each of which asserts the central importance of adaptation and natural selection to the study of evolution, but conceives this importance in a different way. As there are three kinds of adaptationism, there are three distinct "anti-adaptationist" positions as well. Or putting it more formally, there are three different (...)
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  • Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915.Richard Hofstadter - 1945 - Science and Society 9 (4):369-372.
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  • Sociobiology.Edward O. Wilson - 1976 - Philosophy of Science 43 (2):305-306.
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