Anouk Barberousse

Computer simulations as experiments

Whereas computer simulations involve no direct physical interaction between the machine they are run on and the physical systems they are used to investigate, they are often used as experiments and yield data about these systems. It is commonly argued that they do so because they are implemented on physical machines. We claim that physicality is not necessary for their representational and predictive capacities and that the explanation of why computer simulations generate desired information about their target system is only to be found in the detailed analysis of their semantic levels. We provide such an analysis and we determine the actual consequences of physical implementation for simulations.

Species from Darwin onward

Controversy regarding the species problem has been going on for many decades and no consensus has ever been reached about what a species really is and how best to define the concept. De Queiroz (1998) introduced a distinction between two aspects of this problem: on the one hand, the definition proper, and on the other, the criteria allowing biologists to recognize species in practice. This distinction is a first step on the way toward a solution of the problem. In the present paper, we show that de Queirozs distinction is made possible by the radical theoretical change introduced by Darwin. We emphasize that the species problem did not appear in the 20th century, but long before, and that Darwin addresses it indirectly in the Origin of Species. It might seem paradoxical to refer to Darwins views about species, because they are usually considered as unclear. However, we propose that an analysis of these views in the context of Darwins own theory of evolution might reveal how a definition of the concept of species is made possible by being anchored to the very theory of evolution. To this aim, we present a plausible reconstruction of Darwins implicit conception of species and show how this conception fits with the debates on species that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries. We then turn to todays biology and show what changes Darwins implicit conception of species has brought about relative to the species concept and species delimitation.

About the warrants of computer-based empirical knowledge

Computer simulations are widely used in current scientific practice, as a tool to obtain information about various phenomena. Scientists accordingly rely on the outputs of computer simulations to make statements about the empirical world. In that sense, simulations seem to enable scientists to acquire empirical knowledge. The aim of this paper is to assess whether computer simulations actually allow for the production of empirical knowledge, and how. It provides an epistemological analysis of present-day empirical science, to which the traditional epistemological categories cannot apply in any simple way. Our strategy consists in acknowledging the complexity of scientific practice, and trying to assess its rationality. Hence, while we are careful not to abstract away from the details of scientific practice, our approach is not strictly descriptive: our goal is to state in what conditions empirical science can rely on computer simulations. In order to do so, we need to adopt a renewed epistemological framework, whose categories would enable us to give a finer-grained, and better-fitted analysis of the rationality of scientific practice.

Person as moralist and scientist

Scientific inquiry possibly shares with peoples ordinary understanding the same evolutionary determinants, and affect-laden intuitions that shape moral judgments also play a decisive role in decision-making, planning, and scientific reasoning. Therefore, if ordinary understanding does differ from scientific inquiry, the reason does not reside in the fact that the former (but not the latter) is endowed with moral considerations.

Formalising Evolutionary Theory

We propose a formalization of the principles of evolutionary theory as it is currently used in empirical research, in order to enlighten its explanatory resources. We deliberately adopt a minimalist methodology and refuse to include any notion that would not be entirely clear in our formulation. We discuss a few existing formulations and what we see as the touchstone of any formulation of evolutionary theory at the beginning of the twenty-first century: Lenski’s experiments on Escherichia coli. We show the conceptual benefits we draw from our formalization.