Evolution and Philosophy Spring 2015

Lecturer and Convenor: Robert Northcott (r.northcott@bbk.ac.uk)

Office hour: __, Room 312, 30 Russell Square

Course tutor: __

Seminars will follow at 7pm, in room __

-- Weighing the influences of nature and nurture, and whether they can be disentangled

-- Where does morality come from?

-- The design argument for the existence of God

-- How can we test evolutionary hypotheses?

-- Evolution in human history

-- What is the evolutionary role of female orgasm?
Assessment

BA: Two essays, to a combined total of around 3,000 words (and a maximum of 3200).

MA: Two essays, to a combined total of around 3500 words (and a maximum of 3700).
Course textbook (required)

Philosophy of Biology, by Elliott Sober (Westview Press, 2000)

Lecture Schedule

I have included basic readings and a summary of each week’s content. All these basic readings are on Moodle. For further readings, see the essay questions at the end.

-- Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology (2000), pp7-14

-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (2^nd edition, 1989), pp13, 22-7, 36-9

-- Steve Jones, Darwin’s Ghost (2000), pp 2-15

Primer on the basic structure of Darwinian theory. We’ll use the example of the evolution of HIV as an illustration. It’s also a chance to consider other core conceptual issues, such as: Is there ‘progress’ in evolution? What is the role of chance in evolution? Is ‘survival of the fittest’ merely a tautology?
Week 2) The design argument

-- Sober, sections 2.2 and 2.4-2.8 except for the start of 2.7 (pp30-33, 36-46, 50-7). I.e. all of chapter 2 except: sections 2.1, 2.3 and pp46-50 of section 2.7.

Is the often exquisite design of living things an argument in favor of an intelligent designer, e.g. God? Would it be a good argument even in the absence of evolution? Do similar arguments apply to the ‘anthropic principle’? The issue is well suited to philosophy, since close analysis of the logic of these arguments is crucial.
Week 3) What is adaptationism, and how can we test it?

-- Sober, sections 5.1-5.5 (pp121-38)

Is every trait in living organisms an optimal adaptation? Can every trait always be explained by reference to some evolutionary story or other? Must they be? Or is it all too easy to dream up fanciful ‘just-so’ stories? What are the alternatives to such adaptationism? We’ll tackle these controversial and important debates, and uncover their nuances. We’ll also focus on the vital issue of how best to test adaptationist hypotheses.
Week 4) The example of female orgasm

-- extract from introduction to Lloyd, The Case of the Female Orgasm

-- edited extracts from Elisabeth Lloyd’s website

http://mypage.iu.edu/%7Eealloyd/Reviews.html#HowCanYouKnowThat

Here’s an application of the ideas from the preceding class – is human female orgasm an adaptation? How could we tell? We’ll examine the significance of existing sexological research, such as heritability scores derived from twin studies. As well as being a good case study, you also learn plenty of interesting facts along the way…
Week 5) Evolutionary psychology

-- Buss, The Evolution of Happiness

-- Sober, sections 7.2-7.3 (pp198-206)

The burgeoning but controversial program of understanding the human mind as a collection of evolutionary adaptations. Its picture of human psychology is of a ‘Stone Age mind in a modern skull’. The emphasis is on explaining human behavior through biology rather than culture. Buss is a very readable example of this. Again, we’ll also be keeping in mind the issue of how the relevant hypotheses might be tested. In addition, this will be a chance to get straight on human prehistory (in so far as it is known).

-- Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (pp125-31, 171-9)

Altruistic behavior is frequently observed in nature, but underneath it all are we still seeing just the action of ‘selfish genes’? Dawkins explains how family life can indeed be seen in this way and then outlines a great triumph for selfish gene theory, namely the fascinating story of social insects such as ants and bees. We’ll also think about possible alternative explanations of altruistic behavior.
Week 7) Human moral sentiments

-- Ridley, The Origins of Virtue (pp132-47)

-- optional: Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, chapter 12 (pp202-33)

Where does our moral sense come from? There are plenty of intriguing adaptationist models of this too, and of co-operation more generally. Ridley outlines one of the main ones. In these theories, human moral sentiments are seen merely as evolved mechanisms for navigating complex social interactions. The Dawkins chapter is a non-technical primer on some relevant evolutionary game theory.

-- a short handout from me

-- Sober, section 7.4 (pp206-13)

What are the possible implications – if any – of evolutionary theory for our understanding of ethics? Should moral philosophy be transformed? Classic philosophical notions rear their heads here, such as the fact-value distinction and the ‘naturalistic fallacy’.

-- Diamond, summary of Guns, Germs and Steel

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p2.html

-- Jones, Language of the Genes (pp169-74)

-- ‘Noble or savage?’, The Economist 22 Dec 2007, pp129-131

Biological factors have been rather more significant even in human history than you might think. For example, why was it that Europeans colonized the rest of the world rather than the other way round? Diamond’s book is the essential reading here. Jones gives a quick primer on the history of human disease, as revealed by genetic evidence. The Economist piece gives some further background on human prehistory.

-- Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (pp51-5)

-- Sober, section 7.1 (pp189-98)

-- Jones, Language of the Genes (pp182-9)

Are we prisoners of our genes? What does it mean to say that something is caused by genes or by environment? Can nature and nurture ever be disentangled? What does it mean if somebody discovers a ‘gene for’ something? These three readings help navigate an area that’s widely misunderstood.

Essay Questions
-- All books mentioned are available in the Birkbeck library.

-- All articles/excerpts mentioned are available either on the course Moodle page or else for free at the given URLs.

-- I have added annotations in double brackets for those readings that are in addition to those mentioned in lectures.
1) Is the intelligent design hypothesis testable? If yes, has it passed those tests? If not, could it be made testable?

-- Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology (2000), sections 2.2 and 2.4-2.8 except for the start of 2.7 (pp30-33, 36-46, 50-7). I.e. all of chapter 2 except: sections 2.1, 2.3 and pp46-50 of section 2.7.

-- Neil Manson (ed), God and Design: The teleological argument and modern science (Routledge 2003)

((contains a selection of articles from all viewpoints))

-- Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology (2000), sections 5.1-5.5 (pp121-38)

-- David Buss, The Evolution of Happiness

-- Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology (2000), sections 7.2-7.3 (pp198-206)

-- Kevin Laland and Gillian Brown, Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour (Oxford, 2002)

((a balanced survey of the main controversies and methods surrounding evolutionary theorizing, written by a biologist and a psychologist))

-- Steven J. Gould and Richard Lewontin (1979), ‘The spandrels of San Marco and the panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, vol. 205, no. 1161, pp581-598.

((perhaps the single most famous anti-adaptationist paper, written by two famous biologists))

-- Jeremy Fox, ‘Why ‘The Spandrels of San Marco’ isn’t a good paper’,

http://oikosjournal.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/why-the-spandrels-of-san-marco-isnt-a-good-paper/

((a critique of the Gould and Lewontin paper, written by an ecologist on an academic journal’s blog))
3) Explain why Lloyd thinks the evidence tells against human female orgasm being an adaptation. What, if any, arguments could an adaptationist offer in response?

-- Elisabeth Lloyd, The Case of the Female Orgasm (Harvard, 2005)

-- See also: http://mypage.iu.edu/~ealloyd/Reviews.html#HowCanYouKnowThat

See especially the ‘Replies to Critics’ section for links to some hostile reviews, and to Lloyd’s replies to them.

-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (pp51-5)

-- Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Biology (2000), section 7.1 (pp189-98)

-- Steve Jones, Language of the Genes (pp182-9)

-- Paul Griffiths (2001), ‘What is innateness?’ The Monist

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/108/1/What_is_innateness.pdf

((criticizes the very notion of innateness as confusing because it conflates several distinct biological notions))

-- Steven Pinker (2004), ‘Why nature and nurture won’t go away’, Daedalus

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3600799/Pinker_WhyNature.pdf?sequence=2

((defends the categories of nature and nurture))

-- Robert Northcott (2012), ‘Genetic traits and causal explanation’, in Kathryn Plaisance and Thomas Reydon (eds) Philosophy of Behavioral Biology, pp65-82. – see especially sections 1-5. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/philosophy/our-staff/academics/northcott-files/BEBbook.pdf

((my own take on these issues, arguing that explanations that appeal to nature or nurture can make sense and be informative – but only in a contextualized way))

-- Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue (pp132-47)

-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (pp125-31, 171-9)

-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, chapter 12 (pp202-33)

-- Sharon Street (2006), ‘A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value’, Philosophical Studies

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ip/davidpapineau/Staff/Papineau/CourseMats7-8/street.pdf

See also http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/#EvoMet for general discussion, including critical discussion of the Street article.

((argues that evolutionary theory does indeed tell against moral realism))

-- Russ Shafer-Landau (2012), ‘Evolutionary debunking, moral realism, and moral knowledge’, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 7

((a leading moral realist’s response to the evolutionary challenge))