Understanding Contemporary Genomics

Status: published articleRecent molecular biology has seen the development of genomics as a successor to traditional genetics. This paper offers an overview of the structure, epistemology, and (very briefly) history of contemporary genomics. A particular focus is on the question to what extent the genome contains, or is composed of anything that corresponds to traditional conceptions of genes. It is concluded that the only interpretation of genes that has much contemporary scientific relevance is what is described as the “developmental defect” gene concept. However, developmental defect genes typically only correspond to general areas of the genome and not to precise chemical structures (nucleotide sequences). The parts of the genome to be identified for an account of the processes of normal development are highly diverse, little correlated with traditional genes, and act in ways that are highly dependent on the cellular and higher level environment. Despite its historical development out of genetics, genomics represents a radically different kind of scientific project

Probabilistic causality: a rejoinder to Ellery Eells

© 1990 The Philosophy of Science AssociationIn an earlier paper (Dupré 1984), I criticized a thesis sometimes defended by theorists of probabilistic causality, namely, that a probabilistic cause must raise the probability of its effect in every possible set of causally relevant background conditions (the "contextual unanimity thesis"). I also suggested that a more promising analysis of probabilistic causality might be sought in terms of statis- tical relevance in a fair sample. Ellery Eells (1987) has defended the contextual unanimity thesis against my objections, and also raised objections of his own to my positive claims. In this paper I defend and amplify both my objections to the contextual unanimity thesis and my constructive suggestion

Fact and Value

notes: Reprinted in Drunk on Capitalism: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on Market Economy, Art and Science. Edited by Robrecht Vanderbeeken. Springer, 2011, pp. 25-37. To be translated into German in Werte in den Wissenschaften. Neue Ansatze zum Werturteilsstreit (Values in Science. New Approaches to the Value Judgement Debate). Edited by Martin Carrier and Gerhard Schurz, Suhrkamp Verlag.N/

How much of the free will problem does (the right kind of) indeterminism solve?

ArticleThis paper takes up an idea that has interested me for some years: the idea that, contrary to a very widely shared assumption, a radically indeterministic metaphysics does provide a way of understanding human freedom as a real and important feature of the world. However, whereas I used to think of this as a solution to the free will problem within the tradition of radical voluntarism, I now prefer to present it under the rubric of indeterminist compatibilism. In the most crucial respects this position remains true to the voluntarist tradition, but in its current incarnation it aims to capture the powerful intuitions that underlie compatibilist thinking

Causality and Human Nature in the Social Sciences

types: ArticleHuman nature is of course a fundamental concept for social science. There is a widespread belief, even among some social scientists, that human nature is a biological given something that should be elucidated by the biological sciences. This perspective has recently been especially associated with the evolutionary perspective of the human offered by sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists. In this paper I will argue that a number of developments within the biological sciences, both in evolutionary theory (cultural evolution, niche construction, developmental systems) and elsewhere (especially epigenetics) contribute to demonstrating the poverty of these approaches to evolutionary theory. On the contrary, I argue, contemporary biological theory is much more congenial to a view of the human as highly flexible and adaptable to change, much of which is generated by humans themselves. Humans are, by nature, developmentally and behaviourally plastic. I conclude with an account of how a conception of human freedom fits within this general picture

Real but Modest Gains from Genetic Barcoding

Response to Filipe O. Costa and Gary R. Carvalho, ‘The Barcode of Life Initiative: Synopsis and Prospective Societal Impacts of DNA Barcoding of Fish

Comments on Terry Eagleton's "Base and Superstructure Revisited"

Copyright © 2000 New Literary History, University of Virginia. This article first appeared in New Literary History, Volume 31, Issue 2, Spring, 2000, pages 241-245. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press

Hard and Easy Questions about Consciousness

publication-status: PublishedBook chapter from: P. M. S. Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock & John Hyman (eds.), Wittgenstein and Analytic Philosophy: Essays for P.M.S. Hacker. Oxford University Press (2009)N/

In Defence of Classification

publication-status: PublishedIt has increasingly been recognised that units of biological classification cannot be identified with the units of evolution. After briefly defending the necessity of this distinction I argue, contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy, that species should be treated as the fundamental units of classification and not, therefore, as units of evolution. This perspective fits well with the increasing tendency to reject the search for a monistic basis of classification and embrace a pluralistic and pragmatic account of the species category. It also provides a diagnosis of the paradoxical but popular idea that species are individuals: Species are not individuals, but the units of evolution are