Dennis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers : Biology and Ideology: From Descartes to Dawkins

Science has always strived for objectivity, for a ‘‘view from nowhere’’ that is not marred by ideology or personal preferences. That is a lofty ideal toward which perhaps it makes sense to strive, but it is hardly the reality. This collection of thirteen essays assembled by Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers ought to give much pause to scientists and the public at large, though historians, sociologists and philosophers of science will hardly be surprised by the material covered here

The Extended (Evolutionary) Synthesis Debate: Where Science Meets Philosophy

Recent debates between proponents of the modern evolutionary synthesis (the standard model in evolutionary biology) and those of a possible extended synthesis are a good example of the fascinating tangle among empirical, theoretical, and conceptual or philosophical matters that is the practice of evolutionary biology. In this essay, we briefly discuss two case studies from this debate, highlighting the relevance of philosophical thinking to evolutionary biologists in the hope of spurring further constructive cross-pollination between the two fields

A benign juvenile environment reduces the strength of antagonistic pleiotropy and genetic variation in the rate of senescence

The environment can play an important role in the evolution of senescence because the optimal allocation between somatic maintenance and reproduction depends on external factors influencing life expectancy. The aims of this study were to experimentally test whether environmental conditions during early life can shape senescence schedules, and if so, to examine whether variation among individuals or genotypes with respect to the degree of ageing differs across environments. We tested life-history plasticity and quantified genetic effects on the pattern of senescence across different environments within a reaction norm framework by using an experiment on the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus, Linnaeus) in which F1 families originating from a wild annual population experienced different temperature regimes. Male sticklebacks that had experienced a more benign environment earlier in life subsequently reduced their investment in carotenoid-based sexual signals early in the breeding season, and consequently senesced at a slower rate later in the season, compared to those that had developed under harsher conditions. This plasticity of ageing was genetically determined. Both antagonistic pleiotropy and genetic variation in the rate of senescence were evident only in the individuals raised in the harsher environment. The experimental demonstration of genotype-by-environment interactions influencing the rate of reproductive senescence provides interesting insights into the role of the environment in the evolution of life histories. The results suggest that benign conditions weaken the scope for senescence to evolve and that the dependence on the environment may maintain genetic variation under selection

Teaching Evolution While Aiming at the Cautious Middle

As astounding as it sounds, especially to people outside of the USA (and the Middle East, and much of Africa), 13 % of US high school teachers actively advocate creationism and so-called intelligent design theory in their classrooms; another 28 % does the right thing and teaches evolution, but a whopping 60 % falls in the middle: These teachers accept evolutionary theory (though they may be fuzzy on the details), and yet do not teach it in their classrooms, in order to avoid ‘‘the controversy’’ (Berkman and Plutzer 2010). It is largely at this 60 %, and to interested undergraduate and graduate students, that Kampourakis’ new book is aimed

Weighing the evidence in evolutionary biology

The joke among scientists is that ‘philosopher’ is the last stage of one’s scien- tific career, to be arrived at when one can no longer get grants funded or graduate stu- dents to advise. Despite the fact that some of the greatest minds in evolutionary biology (from Darwin to Ernst Mayr) were very much interested in the philosophical aspects of what they were doing, the bad joke persists in the halls of academia

Russia and Its Neighbors: A Geopolitical Analysis of the Ukrainian Conflict

Within the context of a new Cold War between the Western powers and Russia, one of the most dangerous hot spots is Ukraine. Since 2014, in fact, the Ukrainian army has been engaged in a civil war against Russian-backed troops of self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk Republics. This crisis appears as a new geopolitical tool both for Russia and for the United States: for the former, in order to contain NATO expansion, for the latter, in order to counteract Russian influence and to open the way for U.S. liquefied natural gas exports in Europe, reducing European energy dependence on Russia (Chornii, 2015; Marples, 2016). The Ukrainian position is strategic: it is one of the main transit routes of Russian natural gas to European countries, with three main pipeline corridors. Knowledge of Ukraine’s geographic situation is needed in order to better understand the evolving crisis in the region

Philosophy and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Edited by Nicholas Joll

Years ago I was set to spend a full weekend in my apartment, as it was forecast to snow outside. I decided that I needed some good reading to keep me company. I had heard of something called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), which was supposed to be clever and funny. It was, and I’ve never traveled without a towel since. ..

Vindicating science – by bringing it down

Science, in the classical view, is the epitome of a rational endeavor, untrammeled by social and cultural influences. It strives to reflect the way the world really is, and is elevated above our petty human lives. Social explanations come into view only when science goes astray – when it stops being science. In recent decades, radical sociologists and other science bashers have tried to wrestle away science from the hands of those upholding the classical view, bringing science down to the level of other human endeavors. Science, they maintain, is social to the bone, and scientific knowledge is nothing but a tissue social constructions. In turn, this radicalism has fueled suspicions among science advocates about any naturalized conception of science: science should be free from the contamination of social influences. Both parties in the dispute, as we argue in this chapter, buy into an intuitive view that characterizes much of our everyday reasoning about the causes of belief: a stark opposition between the rational and the social. Wherever social influences hold sway, reason takes the hindmost. And wherever reason reigns, there is no need for social explanations. This opposition harks back to an even more basic intuition: true and justified beliefs don’t require a causal explanation. They are just self-evident. We grapple for causal explanations (social or otherwise) only when rationality fails. This assumption, handy though it is as a heuristic and first approximation, does not survive careful scrutiny, and needs to be abandoned. A rich causal account of science, including the constitutive role of the social, in no way detracts from its epistemic credentials. Science, after all, is the concerted effort of many human brains. If we want a non-miraculous explanation of science’s successes, we had better be able to account for them in social terms

Plasticity to wind is modular and genetically variable in Arabidopsis thaliana

Thigmomorphogenesis, the characteristic phenotypic changes by which plants react to mechanical stress, is a widespread and probably adaptive type of phenotypic plasticity. However, little is known about its genetic basis and population variation. Here, we examine genetic variation for thigmomorphogenesis within and among natural populations of the model system Arabidopsis thaliana. Offspring from 17 field-collected European populations was subjected to three levels of mechanical stress exerted by wind. Overall, plants were remarkably tolerant to mechanical stress. Even high wind speed did not significantly alter the correlation structure among phenotypic traits. However, wind significantly affected plant growth and phenology, and there was genetic variation for some aspects of plasticity to wind among A. thaliana populations. Our most interesting finding was that phenotypic traits were organized into three distinct and to a large degree statistically independent covariance modules associated with plant size, phenology, and growth form, respectively. These phenotypic modules differed in their responsiveness to wind, in the degree of genetic variability for plasticity, and in the extent to which plasticity affected fitness. It is likely, therefore, that thigmomorphogenesis in this species evolves quasi-independently in different phenotypic module