Misconceptions, conceptual pluralism, and conceptual toolkits: bringing the philosophy of science to the teaching of evolution

This paper explores how work in the philosophy of science can be used when teaching scientific content to science students and when training future science teachers. I examine the debate on the concept of fitness in biology and in the philosophy of biology to show how conceptual pluralism constitutes a problem for the conceptual change model, and how philosophical work on conceptual clarification can be used to address that problem. The case of fitness exemplifies how the philosophy of science offers tools to resolve teaching difficulties and make the teaching of scientific concepts more adequate to the actual state of affairs in science. © 2021, The Author(s)

The proper role of history in evolutionary explanations

Evolutionary explanations are not only common in the biological sciences, but also widespread outside biology. But an account of how evolutionary explanations perform their explanatory work is still lacking. This paper develops such an account. I argue that available accounts of explanations in evolutionary science miss important parts of the role of history in evolutionary explanations. I argue that the historical part of evolutionary science should be taken as having genuine explanatory force, and that it provides how-possibly explanations sensu Dray. I propose an account of evolutionary explanations as comparative-composite explanations consisting of two distinct kinds of explanations, one processual and one historical, that are connected via the explanandum's evolvability to show how the explanandum is the product of its evolutionary past. The account is both a reconstruction of how evolutionary explanations in biology work and a guideline specifying what kind of explanations evolutionary research programs should develop

How can science be well-ordered in times of crisis? Learning from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic constituted a crisis situation in which science was very far from Kitcher’s ideal of well-ordered science. I suggest that this could and should have been different. Kitcher’s ideal should play a role in assessing the allocation of research resources in future crisis situations, as it provides a way to balance highly divergent interests and incorporate the common good into decision-making processes on research. © 2020, The Author(s)

Ethnobiological kinds and material grounding: comments on Ludwig

In a recent article, David Ludwig proposed to reorient the debate on natural kinds away from inquiring into the naturalness of kinds and toward elucidating the materiality of kinds. This article responds to Ludwig’s critique of a recently proposed account of kinds and classification, the Grounded Functionality Account, against which Ludwig offsets his own account, and criticizes Ludwig’s proposal to shift focus from naturalness to materiality in the philosophy of kinds and classification

An oak is an oak, or not? Understanding and dealing with confusion and disagreement in biological classification

Human interaction with the living world, in science and beyond, always involves classification. While it has been a long-standing scientific goal to produce a single all-purpose taxonomy of life to cater for this need, classificatory practice is often subject to confusion and disagreement, and many philosophers have advocated forms of classificatory pluralism. This entails that multiple classifications should be allowed to coexist, and that whichever classification is best, is context-dependent. In this paper, we discuss some practical consequences of classificatory pluralism, in particular with regard to how one is supposed to find the best classification for a given context. We do so by means of a case study concerning oaks, in particular the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) and the sessile oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.), two important putative species that present several classificatory challenges; and by applying one recent philosophical framework conceptualizing classification, the so-called Grounded Functionality Account (GFA) of (natural) kinds. We show how the GFA elucidates several issues related to oak classification and gives directions to optimize classificatory practices, and discuss some implications for scientific taxonomy

Integrating Philosophy of Science Into Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in the Life Sciences

This paper argues that research on normative issues in the life sciences will benefit from a tighter integration of philosophy of science. We examine research on ethical, legal and social issues in the life sciences (“ELSI”) and discuss three illustrative examples of normative issues that arise in different areas of the life sciences. These examples show that important normative questions are highly dependent on epistemic issues which so far have not been addressed sufficiently in ELSI, RRI and related areas of research. Accordingly, we argue for the integration of research on the epistemic aspects of the relevant areas of science into ELSI research to provide a better basis for addressing normative questions

Evolution at the Origins of Life?

The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status of evolutionary theory in origins of life research by bringing together philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and empirical research in the origins field. We explore the various ways in which evolutionary theory has been extended beyond biology; we look at how these extensions apply to the prebiotic development of (proto)metabolism; and we investigate how the terminology from evolutionary theory is currently being employed in state-of-the-art origins of life research. In doing so, we identify some of the current obstacles to an evolutionary account of the origins of life, as well as open up new avenues of research

An oak is an oak, or not? Understanding and dealing with confusion and disagreement in biological classification

Human interaction with the living world, in science and beyond, always involves classification. While it has been a long-standing scientific goal to produce a single, all-purpose taxonomy of life to cater for this need, classificatory practice is often subject to confusion and disagreement, and many philosophers have advocated forms of classificatory pluralism. This entails that multiple classifications should be allowed to coexist, and that whichever classification is best, is context-dependent. In this paper, we discuss some practical consequences of classificatory pluralism, in particular concerning how one is supposed to find the best classification for a given context. We do so by means of a case study concerning oaks, in particular the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) and the sessile oak (Q. petraea (Matt.) Liebl.), two widely used putative species that present several classificatory challenges; and by applying one recent philosophical framework conceptualizing classification, the so-called Grounded Functionality Account of (natural) kinds. We show how the GFA elucidates several issues related to oak classification and gives directions to optimize classificatory practices, and discuss its implications for scientific taxonomy

Evolution at the Origins of Life?

The role of evolutionary theory at the origin of life is an extensively debated topic. The origin and early development of life is usually separated into a prebiotic phase and a protocellular phase, ultimately leading to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Most likely, the Last Universal Common Ancestor was subject to Darwinian evolution, but the question remains to what extent Darwinian evolution applies to the prebiotic and protocellular phases. In this review, we reflect on the current status of evolutionary theory in origins of life research by bringing together philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and empirical research in the origins field. We explore the various ways in which evolutionary theory has been extended beyond biology; we look at how these extensions apply to the prebiotic development of (proto)metabolism; and we investigate how the terminology from evolutionary theory is currently being employed in state-of-the-art origins of life research. In doing so, we identify some of the current obstacles to an evolutionary account of the origins of life, as well as open up new avenues of research