PAUL GRIFFITHS Defence of Explanatory Adaptationism
Evolution and Ecology Research Seminar Series Friday, 6 August 2010 BioMed Theatre D 3-4pm University of New South Wales (Drinks and snacks will be served afterwards) Empirical adaptationism is the view that a 'censored model' which ignores factors other than natural selection can explain a great deal about the diversity of living forms. 'Explanatory adaptationism' is the view that the most important class of facts which biology needs to explain is the adaptedness of organisms to their environments. These two ideas are logically independent of one another. Empirical adaptationism is clearly an assertion of fact, albeit a sweeping assertion which cannot be very easily tested. Explanatory adaptationism seems more like an expression of preference or interest than a factual claim. In this seminar Paul Griffiths argues that there is more to explanatory adaptationism than merely what some or all biologists find interesting. The concept of adaptation plays a critical role in setting the explanatory agenda for the biological sciences. Because of this, biology today has a subtly different explanatory agenda than biology and its precursor sciences had before Darwin. Paul Griffiths is a philosopher of science at the Universities of Sydney and Exeter (UK)
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