Although it may seem like a truism to assert that biology is the science that studies
organisms, during the second half of the twentieth century the organism category …

Over the past decade philosophers of biology have discussed whether evolutionary theory is
a causal theory or a phenomenological study of evolution based solely on the statistical …

EBATES about the cognitive status of the Darwinian theory of natural selection should have
ended long ago. Their persistence reflects the steady failure of biologists and philosophers …

Fitness is a central but notoriously vexing concept in evolutionary biology. The propensity
interpretation of fitness is often regarded as the least problematic account for fitness. It ties …

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 …

Debates concerning the units and levels of selection have persisted for over fifty years. One
major question in this literature is whether units and levels of selection are genuine, in the …

The idea of adaptation, in which an organism or population becomes better suited to its
environment, is used in a variety of disciplines. Originating in evolutionary biology …

Fitness is a central concept in evolutionary theory. Just as it is central to biological evolution,
so, it seems, it should be central to cultural evolutionary theory (CET). But importing the …

An argument that representational decision making is more cognitively efficient, allowing an
organism to adjust more easily to changes in the environment. Many organisms (including …

Evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs) involve the formation of Darwinian collectives
from Darwinian particles. The transition from cells to multicellular life is a prime example …