
Making Sense of Evolution : The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology.
Title:
Making Sense of Evolution : The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology.
Author:
Pigliucci, Massimo.
ISBN:
9780226668352
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (309 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Prelude Evolutionary Biology and Conceptual Analysis -- One Natural Selection and Fitness -- Two How (Not) to Measure Natural Selection -- Three The Targets and Units of Selection -- Four Studying Constraints through G-Matrices -- Five A Quarter Century of Spandrels -- Six Functions and For-ness in Biology -- Seven Testing Adaptive Hypotheses -- Eight Slippery Landscapes -- Nine Species as Family Resemblance Concepts -- Ten Testing Biological Hypotheses -- Coda A Philosophical Dialogue -- References -- Index.
Abstract:
Making Sense of Evolution explores contemporary evolutionary biology, focusing on the elements of theories-selection, adaptation, and species-that are complex and open to multiple possible interpretations, many of which are incompatible with one another and with other accepted practices in the discipline. Particular experimental methods, for example, may demand one understanding of "selection," while the application of the same concept to another area of evolutionary biology could necessitate a very different definition. Spotlighting these conceptual difficulties and presenting alternate theoretical interpretations that alleviate this incompatibility, Massimo Pigliucci and Jonathan Kaplan intertwine scientific and philosophical analysis to produce a coherent picture of evolutionary biology. Innovative and controversial, Making Sense of Evolution encourages further development of the Modern Synthesis and outlines what might be necessary for the continued refinement of this evolving field.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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