Cover -- Half-title -- Dedication -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Listen to Your Mother -- "How Extremely Stupid Not to Have Thought of That!" -- Selection, Perfection, Direction -- Science and Religion -- Methodological Confessions -- Darwin's Long Shadow -- part i SELECTION -- 1 Darwin and Natural Selection -- Introduction -- A Theory by Which to Work -- "Nature's Plan of Campaign" -- Ideals of Natural Order -- Natural Selection -- Darwin and Organism Selection -- "One Special Difficulty" -- Of "Well-Endowed Men" -- Possibilities and Boundaries -- Social Evolution -- Selection and Individuality -- What Natural Selection Cannot Do -- Summary: Darwin and Natural Selection -- 2 The Group Selection Controversy -- Introduction -- The Population Problem -- "Ten Thousand Sharp Wedges" -- Planned Parenthood -- Intrinsic Control of Population Density -- The Theory of Animal Dispersion -- Summary: Rival Theories of Population Control -- Group Selection Under Fire -- Maynard Smith's Critique -- Lack's Critique -- Williams's Critique -- The Fate of Animal Dispersion -- Group Selection Resurgent -- The Myxoma Case -- Wilson's Structured Deme Model -- But Is It Group Selection? -- Summary: The Group Selection Controversy -- 3 For Whose Good Does Natural Selection Work? -- Introduction -- The Evolutionary Problem of Altruism -- The Central Theoretical Problem -- Challenging the Organismic Paradigm -- Genes versus Organisms -- Kin Selection -- Selfish DNA -- The Group Above and the Gene Below -- Gene Selection versus Gene Selectionism -- The A Priori Argument for Gene Selectionism -- The Explanatory Scope Argument -- Causality and Representation -- The A Priori Argument Undermined -- Thrust and Parry re the Causal Thesis -- Assigning Functional Roles -- Replicators and Interactors -- Getting Serious About Functional Roles.

Pluralism and Holism -- The Pluralist Option -- The Holist Option -- Replicators Strike Back -- Summary: For Whose Good Does Natural Selection Work? -- part ii ADAPTATION -- 4 Darwin (and Others) on Biological Perfection -- Introduction -- Biological Perfection and Imperfection in Pre-Darwinian Natural History -- Utilitarian-Creationism -- Biological Idealism -- Biological Perfection in the Origin of Species -- Perfect Adaptation -- Perfectly Useless Structures -- Exquisite but Imperfect Organs -- From Absolute to Relative Adaptation -- Wallace on Adaptation -- Wallace's Early Nonadaptationism -- Wallace's Adaptationism -- Darwin and Wallace on the Power of Selection -- The Question of Interspecific Differences -- The Power of Selection -- "A Matter of Chance"? -- Summary: Darwin (and Others) on Biological Perfection -- 5 Adaptation After Darwin -- Introduction -- Evolutionary Alternatives After Darwin -- Standing Paley on His Head -- Theistic Evolutionism -- Neo-Lamarckism -- Orthogenesis -- Mutation Theory -- Summary: Neo-Darwinism and Its Rivals -- Wright's Shifting Balance Theory -- The Fisherian Background -- Random Genetic Drift -- Adaptive Peaks and Intergroup Selection -- Adaptation in the Modern Synthesis -- Dobzhansky, Simpson, and Lack -- Other Synthesists -- "The Cutting Edge of Adaptationism" -- "The Perfection of Animals" -- Critiquing "the Adaptationist Programme" -- "The Panglossian Paradigm" -- Critiquing the Critique -- Summary: Adaptation After Darwin -- 6 Adaptation(ism) and Its Limits -- Introduction -- Adaptation" -- Historical versus Engineering Definitions -- Adaptations versus Adaptive Traits -- Exaptations and Evolutionary Tinkering -- Adaptationism -- What Is "Adaptationism"? -- Three Kinds of Adaptationism -- The Key Issues -- Empirical Adaptationism -- Are All Phenotypic Characteristics Adaptations?.

Are All Adaptive Characteristics Optimal? -- Factors Limiting Optimal Design -- Explanatory Adaptationism -- The Selection-Product View Revisited -- Summary: Explanatory Adaptationism -- Methodological Adaptationism -- The Virtues of Adaptationist Thinking -- The Perils of Adaptationist Thinking -- Summary: Adaptation(ism) and Its Limits -- part iii PROGRESS -- 7 Darwin on Evolutionary Progress -- Introduction -- Darwin's Evolving View of Progress -- Notebooks (1837-1839) -- Essay of 1844 -- "Competitive Highness" -- "Specialisation" and "Division of Physiological Labour" -- "Highness" and Natural Selection -- On the "Necessity" of Evolutionary Progress -- "Grade of Development" versus "Type of Organisation" -- Progress in The Descent of Man (1871) -- Was Darwin's View Cogent? -- Summary: Darwin on Evolutionary Progress -- 8 Evolutionary Progress from Darwin to Dawkins -- Introduction -- Julian Huxley's Progressive Evolutionism -- Directional Trends -- Control and Independence -- Biological Advancement -- Simpson's Pluralistic Conception of Progress -- The Meaning of Evolution -- The History of Life -- The Concept of Progress in Organic Evolution -- Summary: Huxlean versus Simpsonian Evolutionary Progress -- Gould on Evolutionary Progress -- The Anti-Egocentric Argument -- The No Inherent "Thrust" Argument -- The Random Motion Argument -- The Biotic Domination Argument -- The "Full House" Argument -- Summary: Gould on Evolutionary Progress -- Dawkins on Evolutionary Progress -- The "Adaptationist" Definition -- Arms Races -- How "Pervasive" Is Evolutionary Progress? -- The Evolution of Evolvability -- Summary: Evolutionary Progress from Darwin to Dawkins -- 9 Is Evolution Progressive? -- Introduction -- Aims and Strategies -- What Is Evolutionary Progress? -- Succession, Progression, and Progress -- Directional Evolutionary Change.

Universal versus Episodic Directional Change -- Uniform, Net, and Apex Directional Change -- What, If Anything, Has Increased in Evolution? -- Intermission: Complexity -- Evolutionary Progression: Preliminary Conclusions -- Improvement -- The "No Ultimate Basis" Objection -- Domain-Relevant versus Domain-Irrelevant Standards -- Biologically Relevant versus Biologically Irrelevant Standards -- Does Evolution Manifest Improvement? -- Is There Long-Term Evolutionary Progress? -- Complexity (again) -- The Problem of Environmental Change and Stability -- Summary: Long-Term Evolutionary Progress -- Objections and Replies -- No Theoretical Justification for Directionality -- Directional Trends May Be Just the Result of Passive Forces -- Significant Biological Properties Have Not Increased Recently -- No Organism Is Better Overall -- The Idea of Progress Is "Value-Laden" -- The Idea of Progress Is Anthropocentric -- Evolutionary Progress May Be Real, But It Is Boring -- Summary: Is Evolution Progressive? -- 10 Human Physical and Mental Evolution -- Introduction -- Darwin and Wallace on Man -- Darwin's Naturalism -- Wallace on "The Antiquity of Man" -- Wallace's Apostasy -- Darwin on the Descent of Man -- Darwinism and Human Nature -- Lending Evolution a Helping Hand -- The Sociobiology Controversy -- Darwinian Medicine -- Evolutionary Psychology -- Were We Inevitable? -- Highness and Inevitability -- Evolutionary Contingency -- Competition and Convergence -- "The Ultimate Predator" -- The Evolutionary Destiny of Homo Sapiens -- Darwin and Wallace on the Future of Humankind -- The View from the Synthesis -- The Rise of "Non-Zero-Sumness" -- Summary: Human Physical and Mental Evolution -- Epilogue -- Appendix What Did Darwin Really Believe About Evolutionary Progress? -- The "Mainstream" Interpretation -- Against the Mainstream Interpretation.

Darwin as a Nonprogressionist -- Conclusions: Darwin the Icon -- Notes -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Chapter 4 -- Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7 -- Chapter 8 -- Chapter 9 -- Chapter 10 -- Appendix -- References -- Index.