Agents and Goals in Evolution

J. Arvid gren, The Quarterly Review of Biology Okasha provides a convincing and valuable analysis of a particular, some might say peculiar, way of doing science. Both biologists and philosophers will have much to gain from reading this book.

Adrian Stencel, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Agents and Goals in Evolution is essential reading for philosophers and biologists interested in subjects where reference to agency occurs, including fitness optimization, kin selection, and social evolution. It also touches on the relation between rationality and evolution, which could make it of interest to scholars working outside evolutionary biology but seeking to understand the appeal to evolution in different scientific fields.

Daniel C. Dennett, Metascience Samir Okasha's 2018 book might well become the consensus classic text for biologists to fall back on when they find themselves unable to resist both function talk and agent talk in the course of their inquiries and explanations. It covers the ground with admirable clarity, caution and scholarship, delving in detail into the formal work by Hamilton, Maynard Smith, Grafen, Trivers and others, while also considering a wealth of theoretical and empirical research in behavioral ecology, cognitive ethology, economics and psychology.

Andy Gardner, Metascience His book is thought-provoking, and it provides an excellent entry point into an interesting multidisciplinary literature. I will certainly make use of it in the future as a reference work.

Hannah Rubin, Metascience remarkably well argued and deep for a book that covers so much ground. Okasha clarifies and organizes many formerly disparate ways of using agential thinking in biology, discussing grand ideas with extraordinary clarity and subtly.

Jonathan Birch, Mind I have barely scratched the surface here of the many subtle, rich and illuminating points made in this book. Anyone with a serious interest in the foundations of evolutionary theory and the nature of evolutionary explanation will get a lot out of it, whatever their disciplinary background.

Samir Okasha is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Bristol, where he has worked since 2003. He previously held positions at the University of York, LSE, and the National University of Mexico. Okasha is the author of numerous articles on topics in philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, evolutionary theory, and epistemology. His book Evolution and the Levels of Selection (OUP 2006) was awarded the Lakatos Prize for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. He is currently President of the European Philosophy of Science Association.

Part I: Agency in Evolutionary Biology 1: Agential Thinking and its Rationale 2: Genes and Groups as Agents Part II: The Goal of Fitness Maximization 3: Wright s Adaptive Landscape, Fisher s Fundamental Theorem 4: Grafen s Formal Darwinism, Adaptive Dynamics 5: Social Evolution, Hamilton s Rule, Inclusive Fitness Part III: Rationality meets Evolution 6: The Evolution-Rationality Connection 7: Can Adaptiveness and Rationality Part Ways? 8: Risk, Rational Choice and Evolution Final Thoughts