On closing the gap between philosophical concepts and their usage in scientific practice: A lesson from the debate about natural selection as mechanism (2016)
In addition to theorizing about the role and value of mechanisms in scientific explanation or the causal structure of the world, there is a fundamental task of getting straight what a ‘mechanism’ is in the first place. Broadly, this paper is about the challenge of application: the challenge of aligning one's philosophical account of a scientific concept with the manner in which that concept is actually used in scientific practice. This paper considers a case study of the challenge of application as it pertains to the concept of a mechanism: the debate about whether natural selection is a mechanism. By making clear what is and is not at stake in this debate, this paper considers various strategies for dealing with the challenge of application and makes a case for definitional pluralism about mechanism concepts.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Saúl Pérez-González;
Victor J. Luque;
(2019)
Evolutionary Causes as Mechanisms: A Critical Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB808020616/)
Article
Lane DesAutels;
(2016)
Natural selection and mechanistic regularity
(/isis/citation/CBB836935774/)
Article
Curtis N. Johnson;
(2019)
Charles Darwin, Richard Owen, and Natural Selection: A Question of Priority
(/isis/citation/CBB684893999/)
Article
Kathryn Tabb;
(2016)
Darwin at Orchis Bank: Selection after the Origin
(/isis/citation/CBB704610076/)
Article
Loison, Laurent;
(2011)
French Roots of French Neo-Lamarckisms, 1879--1985
(/isis/citation/CBB001220959/)
Book
Cosans, Christopher E.;
(2009)
Owen's Ape and Darwin's Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism and Creationism
(/isis/citation/CBB000951052/)
Article
Jamie Shaw;
(2021)
Feyerabend and manufactured disagreement: reflections on expertise, consensus, and science policy
(/isis/citation/CBB740430654/)
Article
Rein Vihalemm;
(2016)
Chemistry and the Problem of Pluralism in Science: An Analysis Concerning Philosophical and Scientific Disagreements
(/isis/citation/CBB999713526/)
Chapter
JEAN-MARC LÉVY-LEBLOND;
(2016)
On the Plurality of (Theoretical) Worlds
(/isis/citation/CBB014827402/)
Article
F. Boem;
E. Ratti;
M. Andreoletti;
G. Boniolo;
(2016)
Why genes are like lemons
(/isis/citation/CBB006967276/)
Chapter
HASOK CHANG;
(2016)
Cultivating Contingency: A Case for Scientific Pluralism
(/isis/citation/CBB947555912/)
Article
Baker, Jason M.;
(2005)
Adaptive Speciation: The Role of Natural Selection in Mechanisms of Geographic and Non-geographic Speciation
(/isis/citation/CBB000770692/)
Article
Skipper, Robert A., Jr.;
Millstein, Roberta L.;
(2005)
Thinking about Evolutionary Mechanisms: Natural Selection
(/isis/citation/CBB000770693/)
Article
Sahotra Sarkar;
(2015)
Nagel on Reduction
(/isis/citation/CBB557469066/)
Article
Lloyd, Elisabeth A.;
(2000)
Groups on Groups: Some Dynamics and Possible Resolution of the Units of Selection Debates in Evolutionary Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000111063/)
Book
Leeuwenburgh, Bart;
(2009)
Darwin in Domineesland
(/isis/citation/CBB001024341/)
Article
Bowler, Peter J.;
(2014)
Francis Galton's Saltationism and the Ambiguities of Selection
(/isis/citation/CBB001421642/)
Article
Logan, Alison M. B.;
Pickering, Jane;
(2014)
A Museum of Ideas: Evolution Education at the Yale Peabody Museum during the 1920s
(/isis/citation/CBB001421593/)
Book
Levine, George Lewis;
(2006)
Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World
(/isis/citation/CBB000772748/)
Article
John Beatty;
(2019)
The Creativity of Natural Selection? Part II: The Synthesis and Since
(/isis/citation/CBB067118452/)
Be the first to comment!