| Course: | LPS/Phil 240 |
| Name: | Cause/Laws of Evolutionary Biology |
| Description: |
In
this course we will begin by reading Elliott Sober's classic account of
the foundations and status of evolutionary theory, The Nature of Selection.
We will then go on to look at the latest incarnations of a number of
disputes about what kind
of a theory evolutionary theory is (and what, if anything, makes it
different from other theories) that were shaped or created in this
fertile soil: the proper understanding of fitness and
evolutionary "forces", reductionism, whether (and why) evolutionary
theory is an indeterministic or stochastic theory, whether there are
laws in biology (and what to make of it if there aren't), and the units
of selection controversy. This list of topics, however, remains
subject to change at the slightest whim and on the flimsiest
justification.
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