Trees of Life

This volume contains papers presented by New Zealand and American philosophers of biology during a recent visit to New Zealand by Elliott Sober. Some of the papers reveal a local perspective on current debates. Robin Craw's contribution to the "evolutionary" philosophy of science initiated by David Hull, applies to intellectual evolution the stongly biogeographic approach to the evolution of life that is a recognized New Zealand speciality. Susan Oyama and Russell Gray's papers on the "developmental systems" approach to evolution, for example, are the outcome of several years of fruitful exchange. The remaining papers in the volume cover a range of topics. In addition to Sober's own discussion of post-sociobiological treatments of cultural evolution the volume includes Kim Sterelny's evaluation of "macroevolution", Paul Griffiths' analysis of adaptation and vestigialty, John Morss on the notion of ontogeny and Timothy Shanahan on the concept of drift.