Philosophy 3334: Philosophy of Biology
Spring, 2020

Professor Joel Velasco
Office: 265G (Eng/phil building)
Office Hours: M, T, Th 2:00-3:00 or by appointment

Class meets Tue, Thur, 9:30-10:50 in English and Philosophy 264 (honors section)
Class meets Tue, Thur, 12:30-1:50 in English and Philosophy 164 (non-honors)

All of the boilerplate information such as course policies and the grading scheme can be found on the syllabus. The readings for the course are below.

Syllabus

Required Books:

The Selfish Gene (40th anniversary edition) by Richard Dawkins. Oxford Landmark Science, 2016. (Any edition after and including the second edition of this book is fine).

All class assignments and any other readings will be found on this website. You should check this website reguarly for updates and bring copies of the assigned readings to class. All readings should be done before the date they are listed here. Come to class on that day prepared to discuss them. Reading questions and other homework assignments are due at the beginning of class on the date they are listed.

This is a tentative schedule/reading list:

Week 1 -

Thur, 1/16
- Introduction
Extras

Week 2 -

Tue, 1/21
- class canceled (Joel sick)
Thu, 1/23
- Dawkins, ch 1+2 (and you should always be reading the endnotes - marked with *)
- reading questions
- pdf of Dawkins available on blackboard
Extras:
- Concepcion, How to read philosophy (the appendix especially)
- Szathmary and Maynard Smith, The Major Evolutionary Transitions
- Szathmary, The First Replicators

Week 3 -

Tue, 1/28
- Dawkins, ch 3, 4
- reading questions
Thu, 1/30
- Dawkins, ch 5 (ESS)
Extras:
- Skyrms, Chapter 4 from Signals (the basics of ESS and evolutionary game thoery)
- Evolutionary Game Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Maynard Smith and Price, The Logic of Animal Conflict
- Maynard Smith, The Theory of Games and the Evolution of Animal Conflicts
- Maynard Smith and Parker, The Logic of Asymmetric Contests

Week 4 -

Tue, 2/4
- Short Essay 1 due
- Dawkins, ch 5 (continued)
Thu, 2/6
- Hawk/Dove practice handout
Extras:

Week 5 -

Tue, 2/11
- Dawkins, ch 6 (kin selection)
- reading questions
Thu, 2/13
- Dawkins, ch 7+8
- reading questions
Extras:
- Hamilton, W.D. (1963). The evolution of altruistic behavior (short, 'popular' piece)
- Hamilton, W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour I (these two are more formal and complete)
- Hamilton, W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behaviour II
- Maynard Smith, John (1964). Group selection and kin selection
- Dawkins, Replicator selection and the extended phenotype
- Dawkins, 12 Misunderstandings of kin selection

Week 6 -

Tue, 2/18
- Dawkins, ch 9, 10
- reading questions
Thu, 2/20
- Assignment 2 due **HERE ARE SAMPLE ANSWERS**
- Dawkins , ch 12 (reciprocal altruism)
Extras:
- Sober, on laws and models [about Fisher on sex ratios] (from chapter 1 of The Philosophy of Biology
- Sober, Sex Ratio Theory - Ancient and Modern
- Trivers, Parental Investment and Sexual Selection
- Trivers and Willard, Natural Selection of Parental Ability to Vary the Sex Ratio of Offspring
- Trivers, R. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism
- Axelrod and Hamilton, The Evolution of Cooperation
- Hamilton, Extraordinary sex ratios

Week 7 -

Tue, 2/25
- Dawkins , ch 12 (again),11
- reading questions
Thu, 2/27
- Dawkins , ch 13
- Epilogue of The Selfish Gene
Extras:
- 40th anniversary review of The Selfish Gene from the Guardian
- Maynard Smith review of Dawkins The Extended Phenotype
- Gene-Juggling (Mary Midgley's review of Dawkins)
- The Law of the Jungle (J.L. Mackie's review of Dawkins)
- In Defense of Selfish Genes (Dawkins response to Midgely)
- Some articles from Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the way we Think (on Blackboard)
- The trust game (interactive website about the repeated prisoner's dilemma)

Week 8 - Finishing Dawkins and begin Evolution and Ethics

Tue, 3/3
- Dawkins , ch 13
- Epilogue of The Selfish Gene
- Reading questions
Thu, 3/5
- Homework 3 due
- Ruse and Wilson, Moral Philosophy as Applied Science
Extras:
- Kitcher, Four Ways of Biologicizing Ethics

Week 9 - Evolution and Ethics

Tue, 3/10
- Sober, Prospects for an Evolutionary Ethics
- reading questions
Thu, 3/12
- Sober, Did evolution make us psychological egoists?
Extras:

Spring Break - No Class on March 17, March 19

Class canceled for the week and the course will be moving online after that. I will email the class with updates.

Week 10 - canceled

Tue, 3/24
Thu, 3/26
Extras:

Week 11 - Evolution and Ethics

Tue, 3/31
- Horn, Evolution and the Epistemological Challenge to Moral Realism
- Reading questions (to be uploaded in Blackboard)
Thu, 4/2
- Sterelny and Fraser, Evolution and Moral Realism

Youtube interviews with Elliott Sober and Justin Horn as well as me talking with the slides below on my youtube page here: http://youtube.com/user/jdvelasc

Slides for Evolution and Moral realism (my discussion on youtube)

Slides for summary of all papers on evolution and ethics (my discussion on youtube)

Paper assignment on Evolution and Ethics: (to be uploaded into Blackboard)

Extras:
- Rosenberg, Ch 5+6 from An Atheist's Guide to Reality (he argues for Moral Nihilism - the view that there are no moral facts at all)

Week 12 - Human Races

Tue, 4/7
- Bernier, New Division of the Earth
- Appiah, Why there are no human races
- AAA (American Anthropological Association) statement on race
Thu, 4/9
- Mills, But what are you really?: The Metaphysics of Race
- Reading questions on Mills

Slides for Why there are no human races (my discussion on youtube)

Slides for But what are you really? (my discussion on youtube)

Extras:
- Short video interview with Appiah on the history of race
- Longer video interview with Appiah on race and psychological essentialism
- Interview with Appiah about his very interesting life
- Short video segment of Charles Mills talking about the social constructionist view of race
- Metaphysics textbook introductory chapter on the philosophy of race (by Alyssa Ney and Allan Hazlett)

Week 13 - Human Races

Tue, 4/14
- Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples and Languages
- Andreasen, A new perspective on the race debate
Thu, 4/16
- Glasgow, On the new biology of race
- reading questions on Glasgow/Andreasen

Youtube interviews with David Livingston Smith and Robin Andreasen can be found on my youtube page here: http://youtube.com/user/jdvelasc

Slides for race and biology (my discussion on youtube)

Paper assignment on Biology and Race: (to be uploaded into Blackboard)

Extras:
- Andreasen, Race: Biological reality or social construct?
- Andreasen, The cladistic race concept: a defence
- Andreasen, The meaning of race (response to Glasgow)
- Interview with Richard Lewontin about race and genetics
- Rosenberg et al., Genetic Structure of Human Populations
- Rosenberg, A Population-Genetic Perspective on the Similarities and Differences among Worldwide Human Populations
- Bolnick, Individual Ancestry Inference and the reification of race as a biological phenomenon
- Feldman and Lewontin, Race, Ancestry, and Medicine (from Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age - 2008).
- Spencer, A Radical Solution to the Race Problem
- Spencer, A racial classification for medical genetics
- Reich, How genetics is changing our understanding of race (NY Times March 23, 2018)
- Reich, How to talk about 'race' and genetics (NY Times March 30, 2018)
- Klein on race and IQ
- Klein and Harris on race and IQ
- How not to talk about race and genetics (open letter)
- Sullivan, Denying race isn't shutting down racism, its fueling it
- What happens when geneticists talk sloppily about race (the Atlantic)
- Dorothy Roberts, The problem with race-based medicine (video)

Week 14 - Sex differences

Tue, 4/21
- APA statement on gender differences
- John Gray, Mars brain, Venus brain (video)
- Fine, a video lecture on her book (Delusions of Gender)
- reading (viewing) questions on sex differences
Thu, 4/23
- Debate from 2005 between Steven Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke about sex differences and scientific aptitude: text (background, transcript, and slides) and video (low quality)

Slides for sex differences (my discussion on youtube)

Extras:
- Panel discussion (video): How men and women think: Are mental differences between the sexes real?
- Is the brain gendered (video): Debate between Baron-Cohen and Rippon
- Fine, from Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Differences
- Rippon, Sexing the Brain: How Neuro Nonsense joined Psychobabble to 'Keep Women in their Place'
- Fine, Neuroscience, Gender, and “Development To” and “From”: The Example of Toy Preferences
- Pinker, Gender, ch18 of The Blank Slate

Week 15 - Sex and Evolution

Tue, 4/28
- Symons, Sexual Choice (ch 6 of The Evolution of Human Sexuality - book from 1979)
- Buss, Sexual conflict in human mating (video Ted talk)
- reading (viewing) questions on sex differences in sexual preferences
Thu, 4/30
- Bering, Jesse, Darwin's Rape Whistle
- Coyne (and Myers) response to Bering
- Dupre, The evolutionary psychology of sex and gender (ch 3 of Human Nature and the Limits of Science)
Extras:
- Thornhill, R. and Palmer, C., Intro and Conclusion of A Natural History of Rape [the underlining is not mine]
- Lloyd, E. Science Gone Astray: Evolution and Rape
- Vickers, A. L. and Kitcher, P., Pop Sociobiology Reborn: The Evolutionary Psychology of Sex and Violence

Week 16 - Sex and Gender

Tue, 5/5 (last day of class)
- Fausto-Sterling, How many sexes are there? (NY Times editorial from 1993)
- Fausto-Sterling, Why sex is not binary (NY Times editorial from 2018)
- Byrne, Is sex binary?
- Clarke, response to Byrne
Extras:
- Byrne's reply to Clarke
- Gender Revolution: a journey with Katie Couric -- documentary on gender issues
- The humiliating practice of sex-testing female atheletes
- Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the body (book with chapters about history of gender, intersex, etc.)

Final assignment - due May 10th (to be uploaded into Blackboard)