14 documents found, page 1 of 2

The machine-organism relation revisited

This article addresses some crucial assumptions that are rarely acknowledged when organisms and machines are compared. We begin by presenting a short historical reconstruction of the concept of "machine." We show that there has never been a unique and widely accepted definition of "machine" and that the extant definitions are based on specific technologies. Then we argue that, despite the concept's ambiguity, w...

Evolución del comportamiento social

Towards a Pricean foundation for cultural evolutionary theory

The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations –or even the fundamental equation– of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not hav...

The mirror of physics: on how the Price equation can unify evolutionary biology

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biol‐ ogy has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can wor...

Darwinism Without Selection? A Lesson from Cultural Evolutionary Theory

Wondering about “how Darwinian” cultural change actually is, some authors have recently stressed that there are different degrees to which a process can be considered as evolutionary. Some of them advocate for a central role of selective processes in cultural evolution, while others deny that these are relevant to explain cultural change, if not incidentally. Taking a cue from this debate, in this chapter, I sh...

Falconer, Darwin y el Derecho Anglosajón: Como Repensar la “Estructura” de la T...

 En su Opus Magnum, La Estructura de la Teoría de la Evolución, Stephen J. Gould argumentaba que hay dos maneras principales de representar la estructura de la teoría evolutiva: de manera jerárquica y fundacional, como defendido por el paleontólogo escocés Hugh Falconer, y por medio de una forma más abierta y flexible, respaldada por el mismo Darwin. A la luz de la literatura más reciente, en este artículo pret...

Introduction to Life and Evolution

During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology. As attested by the creation and growth of many specialized journals, many scholars have actively engaged in this field, producing high-quality research. Although several authors regularly publish in English, most of them still prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese and, for this reason, th...

Drift as a Force of Evolution: A Manipulationist Account

Can evolutionary theory be properly characterised as a “theory of forces”, like Newtonian mechanics? One common criticism to this claim concerns the possibility to conceive genetic drift as a causal process endowed by a specific magnitude and direction. In this article, we aim to offer an original response to this criticism by pointing out a connection between the notion of force and the notion of explanatory d...

Not by Memes Alone

Review of Alan C. Love and William C. Wimsatt (Eds.): Beyond the Meme: Development and Structure in Cultural Evolution (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 22). Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press, 2019 (Paperback edition, pp. 542)

Life and Evolution

Presents to English speaking readers a good sample of researches in the field of history and philosophy of biology developed in Latin America Brings together contributions from researchers working in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia Contributes to integrate new perspectives to the international debates around topics such as the history of the concept of life and the structure and development of evo...