Structure of Biological Theories

Paul Thompson is Professor of Philosophy and Chairman of the Division of Humanities at the University of Toronto.

"This is a first-class piece of work. The philosophy of biology generally is a subject that has leapt ahead in recent years, and Thompson is one of the best of the young practitioners. The topic with which he deals is timely and his approach is controversial and exciting. He makes his case skillfully and with much knowledge." — Michael Ruse, editor of Biology and Philosophy"The central message of the book is that general philosophical misconceptions about the nature of theories have resulted in severe misrepresentations of evolutionary theory. This is an important and timely contribution to the literature of the philosophy of science." — John Beatty, University of Minnesota

• Preface Introduction 1. Theory Structure and Foundational Issues in Evolutionary Biology 1.1 The Theory of Evolution as a Family of Interacting Models1.2 Sociobiology and Testability1.3 Culture and the Evolutionary Process 2. The Syntactic Conception of Theory Structure 2.1 Formal Languages and Formal Systems2.2 Euclidean Geometry as a Formal System2.3 Mathematical Logic and the Formal Structure of Scientific Theories2.4 Empirical Interpretation of a Formal System2.5 Laws, Explanation, Prediction, and Testing2.6 Criticisms of This Conception2.7 Summary 3. Syntactic Conceptions of Evolutionary Theory 3.1 The Population-Genetical Account of Michael Ruse3.2 The Selection Theory Accounts of Mary Willams and Alexander Rosenberg3.3 The Insights and Inadequacies of These Accounts 4. The Semantic Concpetion of Theory Structure 4.1 Models of Formal Systems4.2 Theories as Specifications of a Class of Models4.3 The Set-Theoretical Approach4.4 The State Space Approach4.5 Summary 5. A Semantic Conception of the Structure of Evolutionary Theory 5.1 A Semantic Conception of Population Genetics5.2 Faithfulness to Foundational Work in Genetics5.3 A Semantic Conception of Evolutionary Theory as a Family of Interacting Models 6. Sociobiology 6.1 Explanation and Testability6.2 Intelligence-based Behavior 7. Culture and the Evolutionary Process: Multitheoretic and Multilevel Explanatory Causal Chains 7.1 Evolutionary Epistemology7.2 Evolutionary Ethics Conclusion Bibliography Index