Philosophy 167A/267A – Philosophy of Biology
Autumn, 2008
Joel Velasco
This course will examine a range of philosophical questions concerning the theory of evolution. We’ll begin with the debate between evolutionary theory and creationism and intelligent design. Then we’ll discuss questions concerning fitness, adaptationism, the units of selection, systematics, species, race, sociobiology, and evolutionary ethics.
Requirements:
Attendance in class and participation in discussion, are required and will affect your grade. There will be one in-class exam, one short paper (1000-1500 words on a topic to be assigned) and a final exam in the course. Students registered for 267A will have a research paper due at the end of class rather than taking the final exam.
Office Hours:
My office hours are Tue 2:30-4:30, or by appointment, in 92H in building 90 in the main quad.
Books available at the University Bookstore:
Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology, Westview Press, 2nd edition (= PB).
Elliott Sober (ed.), Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, MIT Press, 3rd edition. (= CI).
Schedule of Readings and Assignments
|
Week |
Dates |
Topics |
Readings and Assignments |
|
1 |
9/23 |
Introduction |
PB ch1 |
|
1-2 |
9/25, 9/30 |
Creationism and Intelligent Design |
Paley, Sober IBE, PB ch2, Behe, Sober WW |
|
2-3 |
10/2,10/7, |
Fitness |
PB ch 3, Mills and Beatty in CI, Sober in CI, Ernst and Ariew |
|
3-4 |
10/9 10/14,16 |
Units of Selection |
PB ch 4, Williams in CI, DS Wilson in CI, Lewontin, Okasha, Muir and Craig, Wilson and Wilson |
|
5 |
10/21 |
|
In-Class Exam |
|
5-6 |
10/23,28 |
Adaptationism |
PB ch 5; Gould and Lewontin, Maynard Smith in CI |
|
6-7 |
10/30, 11/4 |
Systematics |
PB ch 6, de Quieroz, Dupré, O’hara, O’hara |
|
7 |
11/6 |
|
NO CLASS |
|
8 |
11/11 |
Population Thinking |
PB ch 6Mayr in CI, Sober in CI |
|
8 |
11/13 |
|
PAPER DUE |
|
9 |
11/13, 18 |
Species |
PB ch 6; Hull in CI, Ereshefsky, Mishler and Brandon, Baum and Donoghue in CI |
|
9 |
11/20 |
Race |
Appiah in CI, Andreasen in CI, Kaplan and Pigliucci |
|
10 |
12/2,4 |
Sociobiology and Evolutionary Ethics |
PB ch 7; Ruse and EO Wilson and Kitcher in CI |
More detailed reading list:
Week 1:
9/23: Introduction to the class - what is evolutionary theory:
Required readings: PB chap 1
Optional readings: Dobzhansky, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution
Sober, Sex ratio theory - ancient and modern
Darwin, Chapters 3,4 (On natural selection)
9/25: Probability theory and Paley's Design argument
Required readings: Sober, An introduction to Bayesian Epistemology (problem with fonts?)
Paley, Chap 1
PB chap 2
Optional readings: Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Week 2:
9/30: Intelligent Design
Required readings: Behe, Molecular Machines (here is an older version that has the pictures referred to plus
some citation notes)
Sober, What’s wrong with ID
Optional readings: Nagel, Public education and intelligent design
Sober, The Design Argument
Behe, irreducible complexity - obstacle to Darwinian evolution
10/2: Fitness
Required readings: PB chap 3
Mills and Beatty, The propensity interpretation of fitness (CI)
Optional readings: Darwin, Chapters 3,4 (On natural selection)
Bethell, Darwin's Mistake
Gould, Darwin's untimely burial
Beatty and Finsen, Rethinking the Propensity Interpretation of Fitness
Hajek, Interpretations of Probability (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Week 3:
10/7: Fitness (continued)
Required readings: Sober, Two faces of fitness (CI)
Ernst and Ariew, What fitness ain’t
Optional readings: Ariew and Lewontin, The Confusions of Fitness
10/9: Units of Selection
Required readings: PB chap 4
Lewontin, The Units of Selection
Optional readings: Axelrod and Hamilton, The evolution of cooperation
Week 4:
10/14: Units of Selection (continued)
Required readings: Williams, Excerpts from Adaptation and Natural Selection (CI)
Wilson, Levels of Selection: An Alternative to individualism in biology and the human
sciences (CI)
Optional readings: Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (chap 1)
Hull, Individuality and selection
10/16: Units of Selection (continued)
Required readings: Wilson and Wilson, Rethinking the foundations of Sociobiology
Okasha, Recent work on units of selection
Muir and Craig, Improving animal well-being through genetic selection
Week 5:
10/21: IN CLASS EXAM
10/23: Adaptationism
Required readings: PB chap 5
Optional readings: Maynard Smith and Price, The Logic of Animal Conflict
Godfrey Smith, Three kinds of adaptationism
Week 6:
10/28 Adaptationism (continued)
Required readings: Gould and Lewontin, The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A
critique of the Adaptationist programme (CI)
Maynard Smith, Optimization theory in evolution (CI)
Optional readings: Sarkar, Maynard Smith, optimization and evolution
10/30: Systematics
Required readings: PB chap 6
O'Hara, Homage to Clio, or, toward an historical philosophy for evolutionary biology
O'Hara, Population thinking and Tree Thinking in systematics
Baum et al., The Tree-Thinking Challenge
Optional readings: Baum et al., Tree-Thinking Challenge supplements (two tests with
answers)
Week 7:
11/4: Systematics (continued)
Required readings: de Queiroz, Systematics and the Darwinian Revolution
Dupré, Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa
Optional readings: Hennig, Phylogenetic Systematics (defending cladistic classification)
Sokal, The Continuing Search for Order (phenetic classification)
Mayr, Biological Classification: Toward a Synthesis of Opposing Methodologies
(evolutionary classification)
Hull, Contemporary Systematic Philosophies (a survey of the three major schools)
11/6: NO CLASS
Week 8:
11/11: Population Thinking
Required readings: Mayr, Typological versus population thinking (CI)
Sober, Evolution, population thinking, and Essentialism (CI)
reread PB section 6.1
Optional readings:
11/13: PAPER DUE
11/13: Species
Required readings: Hull, A Matter of Individuality (CI)
Mishler and Brandon, Individuality, Pluralism, and the Phylogenetic Species Concept
Optional readings:
Week 9:
11/18: Species (continued)
Required readings: Baum and Donoghue, Choosing Among Alternative "Phylogenetic Species Concepts" (CI)
Ereshefsky, Eliminative Pluralism
Optional readings: Devitt, Resurrecting Biological Essentialism
Velasco, Species Concepts Should Not Conflict With Evolutionary History, but Often Do
Velasco, When Monophyly is not Enough: Exclusivity as the key to defining a phylogenetic species concept
11/20: Race
Required readings: Appiah, Why There Are No Human Races (CI)
Andreasen, A New Perspective on the Race Debate (CI)
Kaplan and Pigliucci, On the Concept of Biological Race and its Applicability to Humans
Optional readings: Andreasen, The Cladistic Concept of Race - a Defense
Andreasen, The Meaning of 'Race': Folk Conceptions and the New Biology of Race
Rosenberg et al. (including Marc Feldman), Genetic Structure of Human Populations
Kitcher, The Future of Race
Lorusso and Boniolo, Clustering humans
11/25 and 11/27 – no class, Thanksgiving week
Week 10:
12/2: Sociobiology
Required readings: PB chap 7
Ruse and Wilson, Moral Philosophy as Applied Science (CI)
Kitcher, Four Ways of "Biologicizing" Ethics (CI)
Optional readings: Ayala, What the Biological Sciences Can and Cannot Contribute to Ethics
Ruse, The Biological Sciences Can Act as a Ground for Ethics
12/4: Evolution and Ethics
Required readings:
Full list of required reading sources (in the order presented in class):
William Paley, Natural Theology, chapter 1.
Michael Behe, “Molecular Machines” Cosmic Pursuit 1998 1:27-35
Elliott Sober, “Introduction to Bayesian Epistemology” (IBE) unpublished (available at:
http://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/recent.html
Elliott Sober, “What's wrong with Intelligent Design”, (WW) Quarterly Review of Biology, 2007
82:3-8
Zach Ernst and Andrew Ariew, "What Fitness Ain't" (unpublished) (available at
http://web.missouri.edu/~ernstz/Zachary%20Ernst/Papers.html)
Richard Lewontin, “The Units of Selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1970, 1: 1-18
Samir Okasha, "Recent Work on the Levels of Selection Problem" Human Nature Review, 2003, 3: 349-356
Muir and Craig, “Improving Animal Well-Being through Genetic Selection” Poultry Science
1998: 77: 1781-1788
David Sloan Wilson and E.O. Wilson “Rethinking the Foundations of Sociobiology” Quarterly
Review of Biology 2007 82: 327-348
Robert O'Hara – "Population thinking and Tree Thinking in systematics", Zoologica Scripta 1997, 26: 323-329
Robert O’Hara - "Homage to Clio, or, toward an historical philosophy for evolutionary biology", Systematic
Zoology 1988, 37: 142-155
Kevin de Queiroz, “Systematics and the Darwinian Revolution”, Philosophy of Science 1988
55:238-259
John Dupré, “Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa”, Philosophical Review, 1981, 90: 66-91
Marc Ereshefsky, “Eliminative Pluralism”, Philosophy of Science 59: 671-690
Brent Mishler and Robert Brandon "Individuality, pluralism, and the phylogenetic species concept", Biology and
Philosophy 1987 2: 397-414
Jonathan Kaplan and Massimo Pigliucci "On the Concept of Biological Race and its Applicability to Humans",
Philosophy of Science 2003, 70: S1161-1172