Download the Syllabus

Description:

This course focuses on evolutionary theory, and in particular, on natural selection and how it operates. We examine debates about fitness, whether selection is a cause or force, individuality in biology, the units and levels of selection, and extentions of evolutionary theory into the realm of culture.

Requirements:

Attendance in class and participation in discussion, are required and will affect your grade. There will be one short paper, one medium-length paper, and one longer final paper.

Office hours:

My office hours are Tues 11:00-12:00 and Wed 1:30-2:30, or by appointment, in 92B on the second floor of building 90 in the main quad.

Books available at the university bookstore:

Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology, Westview Press, 2nd edition (= Sober)
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Norton, 3rd edition (= Dawkins)
Peter Godfrey-Smith, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, Oxford University Press (= PGS).

Reading Schedule:

Unit 1: Evolution and Creationism

Mon, Jan 4
- Introductions
Wed, Jan 6
- Required Readings
  - Sober ch 1
  - PGS ch 1
- Extra Readings
  - Pigliucci, The Borderlands Between Science and Philosophy: An Introduction
  - Weinberg, Against Philosophy
  - Sober, Evolution, Population Thinking, and Essentialism
Mon, Jan 11
- Required Readings
  - Paley, pages 1-20 of Natural Theology (here for printing)
  - Darwin, pages 186-190 of The Origin (here for printing)
  - Dawkins ch 1-4
- Extra Reading
  - Paley, ch 3 (how the eye and other organs work)
Wed, Jan 13

Required Readings
- Sober ch 2
- Behe, Molecular Machines (here is an older version that has the pictures referred to plus some citation notes)
- Sober, What’s wrong with ID
Extra Reading
- Sober, The Design Argument (the longer version of Sober's critique of ID)
- Sober, Evidence and Evolution ch 2 (the longest version of Sober's critique of ID)
- Behe, irreducible complexity - obstacle to Darwinian evolution
- Dembski, A Defense of Intelligent Design
- Nagel, Public education and intelligent design
- Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Unit 2: Characterizing Fitness and Natural Selection

Mon, Jan 18 No Class (MLK day)
Tue, Jan 19 (originally scheduled for Wed the 20th)
- Required Reading
  - Sober ch 3
  - Mills and Beatty, The Propensity Interpretation of Fitness
- Extra Reading
  - Brandon, Natural Selection From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  - Rosenberg and Bouchard, Fitness From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  - Darwin, Chapters 3 and 4 (On natural selection)
  - Bethell, Darwin's Mistake
  - Gould, Darwin's untimely burial
  - Beatty and Finsen, Rethinking the Propensity Interpretation of Fitness
  - Dawkins, ch 5
Mon, Jan 25
- Required Reading
  - Sober, Two Faces of Fitness
  - Ariew and Lewontin, The Confusions of Fitness
- Extra Reading
  - Ernst and Ariew, What Fitness Ain’t
  - Abrams, The Unity of Fitness
Wed, Jan 27
- PAPER DUE!! (assignment)
- Required Reading
  - PGS ch 2
- Extra Reading
  - Matthen and Ariew, Two Ways of Thinking about Fitness and Natural Selection
  - Stephens, Selection, Drift, and the Forces of Evolution
  - Millstein, Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct
  - Lewens, The Natures of Selection
Mon, Feb 1
- Required Reading
  - Walsh, Ariew, and Lewens, The Trials of Life
  - Millstein, Natural Selection as a Population Level Cause
- Extra Reading
  - Sober, from The Nature of Selection, (selection of vs. selection for)
  - Walsh, Chasing Shadows: Natural Selection and Adaptation
  - Matthen and Ariew, Causation and Selection
Wed, Feb 3
- Required Reading
  - PGS ch 3
  - Dawkins ch 7
- Extra Reading
  - Sober, from The Nature of Selection (on explanation)
  - Neander, Pruning the Tree of Life
  - Forber, On the Explanatory Roles of Natural Selection

Unit 3: Individuality

Mon, Feb 8

Required Reading

PGS ch 4

Janzen, What are Daffodils and Aphids?

Extra Reading

O'Malley and Dupre, Size Doesn't Matter: Toward a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

Szathmary and Maynard Smith, The Major Evolutionary Transitions

Wilson, The Biological Notion of an Individual From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Mon, Feb 8

Required Reading

Hull, A Matter of Individuality

Mishler and Brandon, Individuality, Pluralism, and the Phylogenetic Species Concept

Extra Reading

Ghiselin, A Radical Solution to the Species Problem

Wed, Feb 10

Required Reading

PGS ch 5

Hull, Individuality and selection

Hamilton et al. Social Insects and the Individuality Thesis: Cohesion and the Colony as a Selectable Individual

Extra Reading

Wilson and Sober, Reviving the Superorganism

Unit 4: The Units and Levels of Selection

Mon, Feb 15 No Class (Presidents' Day)
Wed, Feb 17
- Required Readings
  - Williams, Excerpts from Adaptation and Natural Selection
  - Lewontin, The Units of Selection
  - Wilson, Levels of Selection: An Alternative to individualism in biology and the human sciences
- Extra Readings
  - Hamilton, The Evolution of Altruistic Behavior
  - Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (chap 1)
  - Axelrod and Hamilton, The evolution of cooperation
Mon, Feb 22
- Required Readings
  - Sober ch 4
  - PGS ch 6
- Extra Readings
  - Sober, What is Biological Altruism
  - Wilson, Relationship of Biological and Psychological Altruism
  - Stich, Evolution, Altruism and Cognitive Architecture: A Critique of Sober and Wilson’s Argument for Psychological Altruism
  - Schulz, Sober & Wilson’s Evolutionary Arguments for Psychological Altruism: A Reassessment
  - Okasha, Biological Altruism From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Wed, Feb 24
- Required Readings
  - Kitcher and Sterelny, The Return of the Gene
  - PGS ch 7
- Extra Readings
  - Lloyd, Why the Gene Will Not Return
  - Waters, Why the Gene Will Return
Mon, Mar 1
- Required Readings
  - Wilson and Wilson, Rethinking the foundations of Sociobiology
- Extra Readings
  - Muir and Craig, Improving animal well-being through genetic selection
Wed, Mar 3
- Required Readings
- Extra Readings
  - Sober and Lewontin, Artifact, Cause, and Genic Selection

Unit 5: Expansions of Natural Selection

Mon, Mar 8
- Required Readings
  - Gould and Lewontin, The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A critique of the Adaptationist programme
  - Jablonka and Lamb, Precis of Evolution in Four Dimensions
  - Dawkins, ch 11
- Extra Readings
  - Maynard Smith, Optimization Theory
Wed, Mar 10
- Required Readings
  - PGS ch 8
  - Sober ch 7
- Extra Readings
  - Fracchi and Lewontin, Does Culture Evolve
  - Ernst, Explaining the Social Contract