Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Variety of evidence in multimessenger astronomy.Shannon Sylvie Abelson - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 94 (C):133-142.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Elisabeth A. Lloyd.Richard M. Burian - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (1):153-157.
    The main goal of this book, The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory, “is to introduce, develop, and demonstrate the usefulness of a precise analysis of the structure of evolutionary theory”, an analysis that treats evolutionary theory as built up out of complexly interrelated mathematical models. The book has a second goal as well, namely, “to offer … evidence of the appropriateness and utility of the semantic view of scientific theories”. The appropriate audience for the book is not obvious. It (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)Conceptual and Logical Aspects of the ‘New’ Evolutionary Epistemology.Paul Thompson - 1988 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 18 (sup1):235-253.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The generational cycle of state spaces and adequate genetical representation.Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Richard C. Lewontin & and Marcus W. Feldman - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (2):140-156.
    Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve. We show that the claimed mathematical equivalence of the models does not hold. *Received January 2007; revised (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • (1 other version)Units and levels of selection.Elisabeth Lloyd - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The theory of evolution by natural selection is, perhaps, the crowning intellectual achievement of the biological sciences. There is, however, considerable debate about which entity or entities are selected and what it is that fits them for that role. This article aims to clarify what is at issue in these debates by identifying four distinct, though often confused, concerns and then identifying how the debates on what constitute the units of selection depend to a significant degree on which of these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   46 citations  
  • Calibration of laboratory models in population genetics.Robert A. Skipper - 2004 - Perspectives on Science 12 (4):369-393.
    : This paper explores the calibration of laboratory models in population genetics as an experimental strategy for justifying experimental results and claims based upon them following Franklin (1986, 1990) and Rudge (1996, 1998). The analysis provided undermines Coyne et al.'s (1997) critique of Wade and Goodnight's (1991) experimental study of Wright's (1931, 1932) Shifting Balance Theory. The essay concludes by further demonstrating how this analysis bears on Diamond's (1986) claims regarding the weakness of laboratory experiments as evidence, and further how (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Manipulating underdetermination in scientific controversy: The case of the molecular clock.Michael R. Dietrich & Robert A. Skipper - 2007 - Perspectives on Science 15 (3):295-326.
    : Where there are cases of underdetermination in scientific controversies, such as the case of the molecular clock, scientists may direct the course and terms of dispute by playing off the multidimensional framework of theory evaluation. This is because assessment strategies themselves are underdetermined. Within the framework of assessment, there are a variety of trade-offs between different strategies as well as shifting emphases as specific strategies are given more or less weight in assessment situations. When a strategy is underdetermined, scientists (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • In Search of Explanations: from Why-questions to Shakespearean Questions.Matti Sintonen - 1993 - Philosophica 51 (1):55-81.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Simulation experiments in bionics: A regulative methodological perspective.Edoardo Datteri - 2009 - Biology and Philosophy 24 (3):301-324.
    Bionic technologies connecting biological nervous systems to computer or robotic devices for therapeutic purposes have been recently claimed to provide novel experimental tools for the investigation of biological mechanisms. This claim is examined here by means of a methodological analysis of bionics-supported experimental inquiries on adaptive sensory-motor behaviours. Two broad classes of bionic systems (regarded here as hybrid simulations of the target biological system) are identified, which differ from each other according to whether a component of the biological target system (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Two Exploratory Uses for General Circulation Models in Climate Science.Joseph Wilson - 2021 - Perspectives on Science 29 (4):493-509.
    . In this paper I present two ways in which climate modelers use general circulation models for exploratory purposes. The complexity of Earth’s climate system makes it difficult to predict precisely how lower-order climate dynamics will interact over time to drive higher-order dynamics. The same issues arise for complex models built to simulate climate behavior like the Community Earth Systems Model. I argue that as a result of system complexity, climate modelers use general circulation models to perform model dynamic exploration (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • A structural approach to defining units of selection.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 1989 - Philosophy of Science 56 (3):395-418.
    The conflation of two fundamentally distinct issues has generated serious confusion in the philosophical and biological literature concerning the units of selection. The question of how a unit of selection of defined, theoretically, is rarely distinguished from the question of how to determine the empirical accuracy of claims--either specific or general--concerning which unit(s) is undergoing selection processes. In this paper, I begin by refining a definition of the unit of selection, first presented in the philosophical literature by William Wimsatt, which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Socio-ecological webs and sites of sociality:Levins' strategy of model building revisited. [REVIEW]Peter Taylor - 2000 - Biology and Philosophy 15 (2):197-210.
    This essay extends Levins'' 1966 analysis of modelbuilding in ecology and evolutionary biology. Amodel, as the product of modeling, might bevalued according to its correspondence to reality. Yet Levins'' emphasis on provisionality and changeredirects attention to the processes ofmodeling, through which scientists select and generatetheir problems, define their categories, collect theirdata, compare competing models, and present theirfindings. I identify several points where decisionsare required that are not determined by nature. Thisinvites examination of the social considerationsmodelers are reacting to at the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Situatedness and problematic boundaries: Conceptualizing life's complex ecological context. [REVIEW]Peter Taylor & Yrjö Haila - 2001 - Biology and Philosophy 16 (4):521-532.
    A key challenge in conceptualizing ecological complexity is to allow simultaneously for particularity, contingency, and structure, and for such structure to be internally differentiated,dynamically tied to its context, and subject torestructuring. Because all organisms live insuch dynamic ecological circumstances, philosophy of ecology could become the leading site for addressing difficult conceptual questions concerning the situatedness or positionality of organisms –humans included – in their changing and intersecting worlds.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The persistence of the R.A. Fisher-Sewall Wright controversy.Robert A. Skipper - 2002 - Biology and Philosophy 17 (3):341-367.
    This paper considers recent heated debates led by Jerry A. Coyne andMichael J. Wade on issues stemming from the 1929–1962 R.A. Fisher-Sewall Wrightcontroversy in population genetics. William B. Provine once remarked that theFisher-Wright controversy is central, fundamental, and very influential.Indeed,it is also persistent. The argumentative structure of therecent (1997–2000) debates is analyzed with the aim of eliminating a logicalconflict in them, viz., that the two sides in the debates havedifferent aims and that, as such, they are talking past each other. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • How evolutionary theory faces the reality.Matti Sintonen - 1991 - Synthese 89 (1):163 - 183.
    The paper sketches an account of explanatory practice in which explanations are viewed as answers to explanation-requiring questions. To avoid difficulties in previous proposals, the paper uses the structuralist account of theory structure, arguing that theories are complex and evolving entities formed around a conceptual core and a set of intended applications. The argument is that this view does better justice to theories which involve a number of different kinds of theory-elements to give narrative explanations. Theories are, among other things, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • A practical philosophy of complex climate modelling.Gavin A. Schmidt & Steven Sherwood - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2):149-169.
    We give an overview of the practice of developing and using complex climate models, as seen from experiences in a major climate modelling center and through participation in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. We discuss the construction and calibration of models; their evaluation, especially through use of out-of-sample tests; and their exploitation in multi-model ensembles to identify biases and make predictions. We stress that adequacy or utility of climate models is best assessed via their skill against more naïve predictions. The (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • (1 other version)Causal Explanation in Laboratory Ecology: The Case of Competitive Indeterminacy.James R. Griesemer - 1988 - PSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988 (1):337-344.
    In this paper I contrast two causal explanations of the outcome of a set of laboratory experiments in population ecology conducted by Thomas Park in the 1940s and 1950s. These experiments shed light on the problem of adducing evidence for the operation of competition (see Lloyd 1987 for a recent philosophical discussion) and are central to the group selection controversy because they form the empirical base for experimental studies of group selection conducted over the last 12 years (see Griesemer and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The semantic approach to evolutionary theory.Marc Ereshefsky - 1991 - Biology and Philosophy 6 (1):59-80.
    Paul Thompson, John Beatty, and Elisabeth Lloyd argue that attempts to resolve certain conceptual issues within evolutionary biology have failed because of a general adherence to the received view of scientific theories. They maintain that such issues can be clarified and resolved when one adopts a semantic approach to theories. In this paper, I argue that such conceptual issues are just as problematic on a semantic approach. Such issues arise from the complexity involved in providing formal accounts of theoretical laws (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Biorobotic experiments for the discovery of biological mechanisms.Edoardo Datteri & Guglielmo Tamburrini - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (3):409-430.
    Robots are being extensively used for the purpose of discovering and testing empirical hypotheses about biological sensorimotor mechanisms. We examine here methodological problems that have to be addressed in order to design and perform “good” experiments with these machine models. These problems notably concern the mapping of biological mechanism descriptions into robotic mechanism descriptions; the distinction between theoretically unconstrained “implementation details” and robotic features that carry a modeling weight; the role of preliminary calibration experiments; the monitoring of experimental environments for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations