JOURNAL OF DIALECTICS OF NATURE
A Comprehensive, Academic Journal of the Philosophy, History, Sociology and Cultural Studies of Science and Technology
Author Information
CHENG Zhixiang
Information
Research Articles
-
Organismic Traits and the Explanatory Scope of Natural Selection Abstract: Could natural selection explain why an individual organism has the traits it does? Debates over this topic have lasted for decades in the philosophy of biology. Indeed, the negative view and the positive view have different interpretations of the very why-question. The two sides have posited different explananda: a whole explicit fact (for the positive view) vs. a particular contrastive focal aspect of the explicit fact (for the negative view). Both explananda are reasonable and acceptable. However, elimination of misinterpretation does not render the negative view true. Rather, I argue that the negative view as a universal proposition is indeed untenable, for there are counterexamples for it in cases of symbiosis, lateral gene transfer, and genic selection. Key Words: Organismic traits; Natural selection; Scientific explanationIssue:Volume 47, lssue 7, July 2025Page: 40-48
JOURNAL OF DIALECTICS OF NATURE
- Contact Us
- Address: No.19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China
- Phone: +86-10-88256007
- Email:jdn@ucas.ac.cn
Follow Us
© 2014 Copyright of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
© 2014 Copyright of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
