A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology

Sahotra Sarkar is Professor of Integrative Biology, Geography and the Environment, and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Genetics and Reductionism: A Primer (1998), Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy (2005), Molecular Models of Life (2005), Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution (2007); co-author of Systematic Conservation Planning (2007); editor of several books, including The Philosophy and History of Molecular Biology (1996), the six-volume Science and the Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: Basic Works of Logical Empiricism (1996), and the two-volume The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia (2006). Anya Plutynski is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. She specializes in the history and philosophy of science.

List of Figures viii

List of Tables x

Notes on Contributors xi

Acknowledgments xvii

Introduction xviii
Sahotra Sarkar and Anya Plutynski

Part I Molecular Biology and Genetics 1

1 Gene Concepts 3
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Staffan Müller-Wille

2 Biological Information 22
Stefan Artmann

3 Heredity and Heritability 40
Richard C. Lewontin

4 Genomics, Proteomics, and Beyond 58
Sahotra Sarkar

Part II Evolution 75

5 Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism 77
James G. Lennox

6 Systematics and Taxonomy 99
Marc Ereshefsky

7 Population Genetics 119
Christopher Stephens

8 The Units and Levels of Selection 138
Samir Okasha

9 Molecular Evolution 157
Michael R. Dietrich

10 Speciation and Macroevolution 169
Anya Plutynski

11 Adaptationism 186
Peter Godfrey-Smith and Jon F. Wilkins

Part III Developmental Biology 203

12 Phenotypic Plasticity and Reaction Norms 205
Jonathan M. Kaplan

13 Explaining the Ontogeny of Form: Philosophical Issues 223
Alan C. Love

14 Development and Evolution 248
Ron Amundson

Part IV Medicine 269

15 Self and Nonself 271
Moira Howes

16 Health and Disease 287
Dominic Murphy

Part V Ecology 299

17 Population Ecology 301
Mark Colyvan

18 Complexity, Diversity, and Stability 321
James Justus

19 Ecosystems 351
Kent A. Peacock

20 Biodiversity: Its Meaning and Value 368
Bryan G. Norton

Part VI Mind and Behavior 391

21 Ethology, Sociobiology, and Evolutionary Psychology 393
Paul E. Griffiths

22 Cooperation 415
J. McKenzie Alexander

23 Language and Evolution 431
Derek Bickerton

Part VII Experimentation, Theory, and Themes 453

24 What is Life? 455
Mark A. Bedau

25 Experimentation 472
Marcel Weber

26 Laws and Theories 489
Marc Lange

27 Models 506
Jay Odenbaugh

28 Function and Teleology 525
Justin Garson

29 Reductionism in Biology 550
Alexander Rosenberg

Index 568