Evolutionary Philosophy

This directory contains links to quality resources relating to the philosophical implications of the theory of evolution.

Resources for learning about evolution

Understanding Evolution
Explains evolution and shows the evidence that supports it. Discusses the relevance of evolutionary theory to our everyday lives.
Evolution on PBS.org
A high quality, interactive, illustrated, educational resource, explaining all aspects of evolutionary theory - "A journey into where we're from and where we're going".
Teaching Evolution
An excellent online book for helping teachers to teach evolution. Covers major themes in science and evolution, frequently asked questions, activities, and other materials.
Human Evolution
A journey of human evolution from the earliest ape to modern man and industrial civilisation. Covers the different stages of man's development.
Evolution of Humankind
An easy-to-read step-by-step explanation of natural evolution from the big bang to the rise of civilization.
Evolution Education Wiki
A reader-built encyclopedia of evolution, biology, and human origins. Promotes evolution education, and provides mainstream scientific responses to the arguments of creationists and other anti-evolutionists.

Advanced references on evolution

Physical Anthropology Tutorials
An excellent presentation of information covering many aspects of evolution from the department of behavioral sciences at Palomar College in California. Includes information on primates and primate behavior, biology and genetics, and the biological and cultural evolution of early humans through to modern humans.
KLI Theory Lab
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research. An excellent collection of topic introductions and other resources.
Introduction to Evolutionary Biology
Misunderstandings about evolution are damaging to the study of evolution and biology as a whole. People who have a general interest in science are likely to dismiss evolution as a soft science after absorbing the pop science nonsense that abounds. The impression of it being a soft science is reinforced when biologists in unrelated fields speculate publicly about evolution.
Evolution
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's introduction to the theory and history of evolution.

Blogs with evolution news

Panda's Thumb
A popular blogsite where biologists and other scientists discuss evolutionary theory, critique the claims of the anti-evolution movement, and defend the integrity of both science and science education.
The Loom
Carl Zimmer, a highly respected journalist and science writer, comments on the latest developments in evolutionary theory.
Stranger Fruit
John Lynch is an evolutionary researcher who teaches the history and philosophy of biology, and is particularly interested in theological and cultural responses to evolutionary ideas.
Evolution blog
A daily commentary on issues relating to any aspect of the dispute between evolution and creation.

Evolutionary philosophy

Daniel Dennett - Life essay
How has Darwin's theory of natural selection transformed our view of humanity's place in the universe?
E.O. Wilson - Science and ideology
Edward O. Wilson, the father of Sociobiology, discusses the problem of anti-science and psuedo-science that arise within the scientific community when political ideology is seen as more important than objective truth.
Replicators - Evolutionary powerhouses
Replicators are the fundamental units of natural selection, first defined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. This is a website specifically designed to explore Dawkins' concept of replicators in an interesting and interactive format.
William H. Calvin - Brain evolution
A neurophysiologist and professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Studies great apes, and specializes in theories of brain evolution.
Evolutionary Game Theory
Evolutionary game theory originated as an application of the mathematical theory of games to biological contexts, arising from the realization that frequency dependent fitness introduces a strategic aspect to evolution.
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is the application of evolutionary theory to social behavior. It assumes that many social behaviors have been shaped by evolution and it attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary histories of particular behavioral strategies.

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer
An introduction to the subject from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California.
Evolutionary Psychology - Frequently Asked Questions
Edward Hagen, formerly at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, and now at the Institute for Theoretical Biology in Berlin, answers some of the most commonly asked questions about Evolutionary Psychology.
Steven Pinker - Why nature & nurture won't go away
People's beliefs about the relative importance of heredity and environment affect their opinions on an astonishing range of topics. It is no surprise that debates over nature and nurture evoke more resentment than just about any issue in the world of ideas.
Evolutionary psychology - The emperor's new paradigm
For some, evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind.
Denise Cummins - Questioning evolutionary psychology
Proponents of the dominant paradigm in evolutionary psychology argue that specific cognitive capacities must be heritable and "quasi-independent" from other heritable traits, and that these requirements are best satisfied by innate cognitive modules. This paper argues that neither of these are required in order to describe and explain how evolution shaped the mind.
Ronald Mallon - Social Construction and Evolutionary Psychology
Social constructionists believe the enormous diversity of social and psychological phenomena indicates the mind is a blank tablet on which experience writes. Evolutionary psychologists advocate that brains have "mental organs" shaped by natural selection which play a major role in shaping consciousness. Maybe these two ideas are compatible.
Daniel Dennet - The fantasy of first-person science
A written debate with David Chalmers and Alvin Goldman. Dennet argues that the inside-the-head phenomenological approach of many cognitive scientists is fundamentally flawed.

Cultural evolution and memes

Sociocultural evolution
Wikipedia's introduction to the theories and the history of the theories of how cultures and societies have developed over time.
Cultural Anthropology Tutorials
An excellent introduction to the characteristics of culture and the methods that anthropologists use to study it - from the department of behavioral sciences at Palomar College in California. Includes information on language, economy, kinship, marriage, ethnicity, politics, and religion.
Daniel Dennet - Memes: myths, misunderstandings and misgivings
Dozens of websites are now promoting memes, but according to Dennet, very few people know what they are talking about. Ironically, people cannot tell the difference between the right ways to think about memes and the wrong ways.
Susan Blackmore - The evolution of meme machines
The concept of the meme emerged from evolutionary biology and the theory of replicators, and within this context it is well understood, if highly controversial. But out on the web, and in popular discourse, the word 'meme' is horribly abused.

Evolutionary ethics and morality

Evolutionary Ethics
Some say that natural selection has instilled human beings with a moral sense. If this were true, morality could be understood as something that arises naturally through the evolution of sociable, intelligent beings. Morality would be interpreted as a useful adaptation that increases the fitness of its holders by providing a selective advantage.
The Evolution of Ethics
An online book about evolutionary ethics. Attempts to construct a conceptual bridge between biology and human behavior by examining the cultural and biological feedback system that inspires the evolution of social rules.
Soshichi Uchii - Darwin on the Evolution of Morality
An analysis of Charles Darwin's own biological considerations on morality.
Evolution and Ethics - An Idea Whose Time Has Come? Part1 Part2
Dr Peter Corning presents an insightful and knowledgeable summary of important ideas concerning evolutionary ethics from the time of ancient Greece to the present.
Alex Rosenberg - Darwinism in moral philosophy and social theory
Surveys contemporary strategies for proving a naturalistic understanding and vindication of morality, ethical norms, our conception of justice, and the cooperative human institutions which these norms and conceptions underlie.
Evolutionary Metaphysics - Analysis of Ancient Beliefs
Outlines the historical patterns behind the formation of systems of cooperative morality such as those used by traditional philosophy and religion from a purely naturalist evolutionary perspective.
Samir Okasha - Biological Altruism
In evolutionary biology, an organism is said to behave altruistically when its behaviour benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. For the biologist, it is the consequences of an action for reproductive fitness that determine whether the action counts as altruistic, not the intentions, if any, with which the action is performed.
Game theory and Ethics
Game theory can be used to explain, to predict, and to evaluate human behavior in contexts where the outcome of action depends on what several agents choose to do and where their choices depend on what others choose to do.
Fritz Allhoff - Evolutionary ethics
Read Fritz's excellent five part doctoral dissertation on the history and development of evolutionary ethics.

Evolutionary theories of sex

Evolution of Sex
Wikipedia's introduction to the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of sexual reproduction.
Study sheds light on why sex evolved
If sexual reproduction is so biologically expensive then why did it evolve in the first place? This experiment used mutant fruit flies to test the answer.
Carla Fehr - The evolution of sex
The evolution of sexual reproduction was probably driven by a combination of factors, meaning that we need more than one explanation in order to adequately account for it.

Evolutionary theories of aging

Evolutionary Theories of Aging and Longevity
The Center on Aging at the University of Chicago introduces three major theories and presents recent experimental findings about how the process of aging might have evolved.
Theodore Goldsmith - The Evolution of Aging
Is aging an inevitable fact of life? Or is it a treatable genetic disease? Recent discoveries and new theories indicate that we can medically alter the aging process to dramatically increase the human lifespan. This paper explains evolutionary theories of aging from Darwin to the present, and describes the discoveries and the politics of anti-aging research.
Death by Design
Some researchers believe that aging is a mistake of nature, others believe that the process evolved for a reason. Joshua Mitteldorf argues that the process of aging is the result of evolutionary forces.
Defending the evolutionary theory of aging
A discussion between experts in the field, commenting about how well the evolutionary biological theory of aging is holding up against mounting attacks.

Human diversity and equality

The Biology of Race and the Concept of Equality
Ernst Mayr speculates about the potentially controversial relationship between human genetic diversity and political notions of human equality.
Frequently asked questions about racial difference
Do biological races exist within the human species? John Goodrum's paper investigates what constitutes a race (or subspecies) and answers some of the questions regarding the biological distinctions between human races.
Jared Diamond - The historical differences between populations
Why did human history unfold so differently on different continents over the last 13,000 years? The acclaimed author of Guns, Germs, and Steel explains why.

Evolutionary metaphysics

John Wilkins - Evolution and metaphysics
Discusses the metaphysical implications and complications of evolutionary science.
Shattering the Sacred Myths - Evolutionary Metaphysics
Extends the theory of evolution to include the struggle for political power and the development of advanced technology. Contemplates the existence of the universe and questions whether consciousness has any kind of cosmic purpose.
Edward T. Babinski - Creation vs Evolution
An open-minded freethinker who writes about creation science, creation vs evolution, intelligent design, and on the value of genuine scientific inquiry.
Colin Allen - Teleological notions in biology
Teleological notions were commonly associated with the pre-Darwinian view that the biological realm provides evidence of conscious design by a supernatural creator. Even after creationist viewpoints were rejected by most biologists there remained various grounds for concern about the role of teleology in biology.

Objections to evolution

Social impacts of the theory of evolution - Social Darwinism
Early evolutionary thinkers argued that evolutionary change should be deliberately nurtured by the more intense prosecution of the evolutionary struggle for existence which would encourage the 'best' out of individuals and societies.
Answers in Genesis - 10 dangers of theistic evolution
A definitive list of reasons why fundamentalists can never accept evolution.

Science and philosophy forums

Philosophy forums
Discuss philosophy, religion, metaphysics, ethics, physical science, social science, mathematics, politics, or the arts.
I Love Philosophy
Online debate website for people with an interest in philosophy, religion, and other related topics.
Philosophy Chat Forum
IRC chat channel and website forum for those with an interest in philosophy who want to express their ideas and share their thoughts
Science Chat Forum
IRC chat channel and website forum for professional scientists, students, and amateurs with an interest in science, evolution, or related topics.
JREF Forum
James Randi Educational Foundation's online forums debating a wide range of topics.

Scientific publications

New Scientist
Online science magazine with updates throughout the day on the latest in science and technology. Includes special reports on hot topics. Search through thousands of articles.
Scientific American
The oldest continuously published magazine in the United States, bringing its readers unique insights about developments in science and technology for more than 150 years.
AAAS - Science Magazine
Peer-reviewed science journal with scientific news, commentary, and cutting-edge research. Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Science Daily
One of the Internet's leading online magazines devoted to science, technology, and medicine. News about the latest discoveries and hottest research projects in everything from astrophysics to zoology.

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