Product Description

Essays by philosophers and scientists address conceptual issues in evolutionary biology; a new edition substantially updated, with new sections on women in the evolutionary process, evolutionary psychology, laws in evolutionary theory, and race. These essays by leading scientists and philosophers address conceptual issues that arise in the theory and practice of evolutionary biology. The third edition of this widely used anthology has been substantially revised and updated. Four new sections have been added: on women in the evolutionary process, evolutionary psychology, laws in evolutionary theory, and race as social construction or biological reality. Other sections treat fitness, units of selection, adaptationism, reductionism, essentialism, species, phylogenetic inference, cultural evolution, and evolutionary ethics. Each of the twelve sections contains two or three essays that develop different views of the subject at hand. For example, the section on evolutionary psychology offers one essay by two founders of the field and another that questions its main tenets. One sign that a discipline is growing is that there are open questions, with multiple answers still in competition; the essays in this volume demonstrate that evolutionary biology and the philosophy of evolutionary biology are living, growing disciplines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #873169 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

About the Author
Eliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Reseach Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Nature of Selection (MIT Press, 1984), Reconstructing the Past (MIT Press, 1988), Philosophy of Biology, and, with David S. Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior.