A strong case has been made for the role and value of mechanistic reasoning in process-
oriented sciences, such as molecular biology and neuroscience. This paper shifts focus to …

Understanding the role mechanistic constraints play in shaping evolution can relieve the
tension between the generally accepted intuition that there are no strict laws in biology and …

Evolutionary biology is still today conceived of as an essentially historical science devoted to
understanding ultimate causes. This chapter considers responses to both the metaphysical …

Some adaptationist explanations are regarded as maximally solid and others fanciful just-so
stories. Just-so stories are explanations based on very little evidence. Lack of evidence …

Evolutionary explanations are not only common in the biological sciences, but also
widespread outside biology. But an account of how evolutionary explanations perform their …

The philosophical conception of mechanistic explanation is grounded on a limited number of
canonical examples. These examples provide an overly narrow view of contemporary …

In September 2008, Electronic Arts released a computer game called “Spore,” in which
players control the evolution of a novel organism from microscopic cell to interstellar …

Scientific inference typically relies on establishing causation. This is also the case in
evolutionary biology, a discipline charged with providing historical accounts of the properties …

There have been periodic claims that evolutionary biology needs urgent reform, and this
article tries to account for the volume and persistence of this discontent. It is argued that a …

In this essay I consider how biologists understand 'causation'and 'evolutionary process',
drawing attention to some idiosyncrasies in the use of these terms. I suggest that research …