Alexander Rosenberg

The Supervenience of Biological Concepts

In this paper the concept of supervenience is employed to explain the relationship between fitness as employed in the theory of natural selection and population biology and the physical, behavioral and ecological properties of organisms that are the subjects of lower level theories in the life sciences. The aim of this analysis is to account simultaneously for the fact that the theory of natural selection is a synthetic body of empirical claims, and for the fact that it continues to be misconstrued, even by biologists, for a tautological system. The notion of supervenience is then employed to provide a new statement of the relation of Mendelian predicates to molecular ones in order to provide for the commensurability and potential reducibility of Mendelian to molecular genetics in a way that circumvents the theoretical complications which appear to stand in the way of such a reduction.

Fitness, Probability and the Principles of Natural Selection

We argue that a fashionable interpretation of the theory of natural selection as a claim exclusively about populations is mistaken. The interpretation rests on adopting an analysis of fitness as a probabilistic propensity which cannot be substantiated, draws parallels with thermodynamics which are without foundations, and fails to do justice to the fundamental distinction between drift and selection. This distinction requires a notion of fitness as a pairwise comparison between individuals taken two at a time, and so vitiates the interpretation of the theory as one about populations exclusively.

In defense of convergent realism

Many realists have maintained that the success of scientific theories can be explained only if they may be regarded as approximately true. Laurens Laudan has in turn contended that a necessary condition for a theorys being approximately true is that its central terms refer, and since many successful theories of the past have employed central terms which we now understand to be non-referential, realism cannot explain their success. The present paper argues that a realist can adopt a view of reference according to which a theory might plausibly be said to be approximately true even though its central terms do not refer, or alternatively, he may construe reference in such a way as to assign reference to a range of successful older theories which includes Laudans purported counterexamples.

Reductionism Redux: Computing the Embryo

This paper argues that the consensus physicalist antireductionism in the philosophy of biology cannot accommodate the research strategy or indeed the recent findings of molecular developmental biology. After describing Wolpert‘s programmatic claims on its behalf, and recent work by Gehring and others to identify the molecular determinants of development, the paper attempts to identify the relationship between evolutionary and developmental biology by reconciling two apparently conflicting accounts of bio-function – Wright‘s and Nagel‘s (as elaborated by Cummins). Finally, the paper seeks a way of defending the two central theses of physicalist antireductionism in the light of the research program of molecular developmental biology, by sharply reducing their metaphysical force.

How is Biological Explanation Possible

That biology provides explanations is not open to doubt. But how it does so must be a vexed question for those who deny that biology embodies laws or other generalizations with the sort of explanatory force that the philosophy of science recognizes. The most common response to this problem has involved redefining law so that those grammatically general statements which biologists invoke in explanations can be counted as laws. But this terminological innovation cannot identify the source of biologys explanatory power. I argue that because biological science is historical, the problem of biological explanation can be assimilated to the parallel problem in the philosophy of history, and that the problem was solved by Carl Hempel. All we need to do is recognize that the only laws that biology—in all its compartments from the molecular onward—has or needs are the laws of natural selection.

Philosophy of Biology: A Contemporary Introduction

Introduction 1. Darwin Makes a Science 2. Biological Laws and Theories 3. Further Problems of Darwinism: Adaptation, Drift, Function 4. Reductionism About Biology 5. Complexity, Directionality, and Progress in Evolution 6. Genes, Groups, and Major Transitions 7. Biology, Human Behaviour, Social Science and Moral Philosophy

How to reconcile physicalism and antireductionism about biology

Physicalism and antireductionism are the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of biology. But these two theses are difficult to reconcile. Merely embracing an epistemic antireductionism will not suffice, as both reductionists and antireductionists accept that given our cognitive interests and limitations, non‐molecular explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular ones. Moreover, antireductionists themselves view their claim as a metaphysical or ontological one about the existence of facts molecular biology cannot identify, express or explain. However, this is tantamount to a rejection of physicalism and so causes the antireductionist discomfort. In this paper we argue that vindicating physicalism requires a physicalistic account of the principle of natural selection, and we provide such an account. The most important payoff to the account is that it provides for the very sort of autonomy from the physical that antireductionists need without threatening their commitment to physicalism.

Normative Naturalism and the Role of Philosophy

The prescriptive force of methodological rules rests, I argue, on the acceptance of scientific theories; that of the most general methodological rules rests on theories in the philosophy of science, which differ from theories in the several sciences only in generality and abstraction. I illustrate these claims by reference to methodological disputes in social science and among philosophers of science. My conclusions substantiate those of Laudan except that I argue for the existence of transtheoretical goals common to all scientists and concrete enough actually to have bearing on methodology. And I argue that Laudan is committed to such goals himself, willy nilly.

Review Symposium : Can Economic Theory Explain Everything?

Homo economicus, as an explanatory model in the social and behavioural sciences has made an impressive comeback. Not so many years ago, he held no sway whatever with sociologists and psychologists. Indeed, even economists refused to take him seriously in the domain of his theory’s original, intended interpretation: the theory of consumer choice and of the firm. The idea that human action, economic or otherwise, was strictly determined by the maximization of utility or preference subject to the constraint of beliefs about available alternatives, was considered so implausible, that even in economics, where this assumption stands at the theoretical core, its explanatory pretensions were systematically pruned to their barest minima. According to one tradition, stemming from Marshall, the implausibility of the view of man as a lightning calculator was no defect in economic theory, for that theory is really not concerned with the explanation of the actions of individual agents-i.e., consumers and producers. Thus, in Value and Capital, Hicks wrote: ’In... our discussions... [of the laws of consumer demand] we have been concerned with the behaviour of a single individual. But economics is not in the end, much interested in the behaviour of single individuals. Its concern is with the behaviour of groups. A study of individual demand is only a means to the study of market demand. Fortunately, with our present methods we can make the transition easily.&dquo; If, as Hicks says, ’our study of the individual consumer is only a step towards the study of a group of consumers... [and] falsifications may be trusted

Infrared Absorption Spectra of Complex Cobalt Compounds

The infrared absorption spectra of finely powdered complex cobalt salts were obtained in the 2 to 15 micron region. Complexed ammonia shows four absorption bands, at approximately 3000, 1600, 1350, and 850 wave numbers. A possible assignment of three of these to N–H vibrations and the lowest to a rocking vibration, as proposed by Mizushima, is discussed. In the trisethylenediamine and hexanitrito complexes a frequency similar to the rocking vibration persists, but other frequencies characteristic of the particular ligands appear instead of N–H bands. A shift in the absorption maxima as the anions are changed shows that the fields of the anions are of importance. Fine structure observed in some of the strong absorption bands might be combinations with lattice vibrations.A comparison of the absorption spectra of certain hexammines obtained from deposited pure powders and from pressed KBr plates shows differences in details, which may be interpreted as indicating dissociation of the cobalt salt in the presse...