Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines Problems and Perspectives in Generalized Darwinism

About this book

This volume aims to clarify the epistemic potential of applying evolutionary thinking outside biology, and provides a survey of the current state of the art in research on relevant topics in the life sciences, the philosophy of science, and the various areas of evolutionary research outside the life sciences. By bringing together chapters by evolutionary biologists, systematic biologists, philosophers of biology, philosophers of social science, complex systems modellers, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, linguists, historians, and educators, the volume examines evolutionary thinking within and outside the life sciences from a multidisciplinary perspective. While the chapters written by biologists and philosophers of science address theoretical aspects of the guiding questions and aims of the volume, the chapters written by researchers from other areas approach them from the perspective of applying evolutionary thinking to non-biological phenomena. Taken together, the chapters in this volume do not only show how evolutionary thinking can be fruitfully applied in various areas of investigation, but also highlight numerous open problems, unanswered questions, and issues on which more clarity is needed. As such, the volume can serve as a starting point for future research on the application of evolutionary thinking across disciplines.

Contents

1. Generalizing Darwinism as a Topic for Multidisciplinary Debate / Agathe du Crest, Martina Valkovic, Andre Ariew, Hugh Desmond, Philippe Huneman, and Thomas A. C. Reydon

Part I: How Can Disciplines Benefit from, or Contribute to, Evolutionary Frameworks?
2. Is a Non-Evolutionary Psychology Possible? / Daniel Nettle and Thom Scott-Phillips
3. Evolutionary Economics and the Theory of Cultural Evolution / Ulrich Witt
4. Repetition Without Replication: Notes Towards a Theory of Cultural Adaptation / Carsten Strathausen
5. The Epistemological and Ideological Stakes of Literary Darwinism / Alexandre Gefen
6. Evolutionary Aspects of Language Change / Johann-Mattis List
7. A Community Science Model for Inter-Disciplinary Evolution Education and School Improvement / Dustin Eirdosh and Susan Hanisch
8. Teaching for the Interdisciplinary Understanding of Evolutionary Concepts / Susan Hanisch and Dustin Eirdosh

Part II: Generalizations of Evolutionary Theory: Common Principles or Explanatory Structures?
9. From Games to Graphs. Evolving Networks in Cultural Evolution / Karim Baraghith
10. Metaphysics of Evolution: Ontology and Justification of Generalized Evolution Theory / Gerhard Schurz
11. Human Social Evolution via Four Coevolutionary Levels / Theodore Koditschek

Part III: Why Should We Be Skeptical of Generalizations of Darwinism?
12. Is Natural Selection Physical? / Sylvain Charlat, Thomas Heams, and Olivier Rivoire
13. The Risks of Evolutionary Explanation / H. Clark Barrett
14. Evolution and Ecology of Organizations and Markets / Randall E. Westgren
15. Pluralism and Epistemic Goals: Why the Social Sciences Will (Probably) not be Synthesised by Evolutionary Theory / Simon Lohse
16. Equations at an Exhibition: on the Cultural Price Equation / Tim Lewens
17. Unlike Agents: The Role of Correlation in Economics and Biology / Hannah Rubin

Part IV: How Can Evolutionary Approaches or the Target Field be Amended?
18. From the Modern Synthesis to the Inclusive Evolutionary Synthesis: An Einsteinian Revolution in Evolution / Etienne Danchin
19. Darwinian/Hennigian Systematics and Evo-Devo: the Missed Rendez-vous / Guillaume Lecointre
20. The Generalized Selective Environment / Hugh Desmond
21. Adding Agency to Tinbergen's Four Questions / Andre Ariew and Karthik Panchanathan
22. Cultural Evolution Research Needs to Include Human Behavioural Ecology / Alberto J. C. Micheletti, Eva Brandl, Hanzhi Zhang, Sarah Peacey, and Ruth Mace

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Biography

Agathe du Crest is Research Assistant in the ANR-DFG project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism: Towards Criteria for Evolutionary Explanations Outside Biology (GenDar) in the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris.

Martina Valković is a Research Assistant in the ANR-DFG project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism: Towards Criteria for Evolutionary Explanations Outside Biology (GenDar) in the Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover, and a visiting researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen.

Andre Ariew is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.

Hugh Desmond is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the ANR-DFG project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism: Towards Criteria for Evolutionary Explanations Outside Biology (GenDar) in the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp.

Philippe Huneman is Principal Investigator in the ANR-DFG project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism: Towards Criteria for Evolutionary Explanations Outside Biology (GenDar) and Research Director in the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris.

Thomas A. C. Reydon is Principal Investigator in the ANR-DFG project The Explanatory Scope of Generalized Darwinism: Towards Criteria for Evolutionary Explanations Outside Biology (GenDar) and Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology in the Institute of Philosophy and the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLS), Leibniz University Hannover. He is also a Visiting Fellow in the Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science Group (SEPOS) and the Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I) at Michigan State University.