Shawn Miller

smillerMUS

I am a lecturer in philosophy at UC Davis, where I also received my PhD. I created philbio.net and have a website. I’ve most recently published in the Anarchist Review of Books.

Philosophy of Biology Reading List

The following list of articles was generated in response to the question, “if UC Davis had comprehensive exams in philosophy of biology, what should be on the reading list?” The articles reflect my choices, though selections were informed by the reading lists used by the philosophy department at Western Ontario University, by discussions with Labsters (which is what lab members are called), Roberta Millstein’s Philosophy of Biology Resources, and University of Cambridge, Department of History and Philosophy of Science Research Guide to the Philosophy of Biology.

Please note: This is a selection of important articles, not books.

  1. Beatty, John “The Evolutionary Contingency Thesis,” Sober, 3rd edition, pp. 217–248.
  2. Cummins, Robert “Functional Analysis,” Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975), 741-765, Reprinted in Sober, 2nd ed., pp. 49–69.
  3. Ghiselin, Michael T. “A radical solution to the species problem.” Systematic Biology 23, no. 4 (1974): 536-544.
  4. Gould, Steven Jay and Richard Lewontin, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme.” in Sober, 2nd. ed, pp. 73-90; 3rd ed., pp. 79–98.
  5. Griesemer, James. “Development, culture, and the units of inheritance.” Philosophy of Science (2000): S348-S368.
  6. Griesemer, James R., and Michael J. Wade. “Laboratory models, causal explanation and group selection.” Biology and Philosophy 3, no. 1 (1988): 67-96.
  7. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer “Empathy, Polyandry, and the Myth of the Coy Female,” in Ruth Bleier, ed., Feminist Approaches to Science (Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1986), pp. 119-146. Reprinted in Janet A. Kourany, ed., The Gender of Science, (Prentice Hall, 2002), and in Sober, 3rd ed., pp. 131–160.
  8. Hull, David L. “Are species really individuals?.” Systematic Biology 25, no. 2 (1976): 174-191.
  9. Kitcher, Philip. “1953 and all that. A tale of two sciences.” The Philosophical Review 93, no. 3 (1984): 335-373.
  10. Laland, Kevin, John Odling-Smee, and Marcus W. Feldman, “Niche construction, Biological Evolution and Cultural Change.” Behavioral And Brain Sciences 23 (2000), pp. 131–175.
  11. Lewontin, R. C. “The analysis of variance and the analysis of causes.” International journal of epidemiology 35, no. 3 (2006): 520-525.
  12. Lewontin, Richard C. “Gene, Organism and Environment” S. Oyama, P. Griffiths, and R. D. Gray, eds., Cycles of Contingency (MIT Press, 2001), pp. 55–66.
  13. Lewontin, Richard C. “The units of selection.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1 (1970): 1-18.
  14. Longino, Helen E. “Can there be a feminist science.” Feminism & science (1989): 46-57.
  15. Lloyd, Elisabeth A. “Pre-theoretical assumptions in evolutionary explanations of female sexuality.” Philosophical Studies 69, no. 2 (1993): 139-153.
  16. Lloyd, Elisabeth A. “Confirmation of ecological and evolutionary models.” Biology and Philosophy 2, no. 3 (1987): 277-293.
  17. Machamer, Peter, Lindley Darden, and Carl F. Craver. “Thinking about mechanisms.” Philosophy of science (2000): 1-25.
  18. Mayr, Ernst. “Typological versus Population Thinking,” in Sober, 2nd ed., 157–160; 3rd ed., pp.325–328.
  19. Mills, Susan K. and John H. Beatty, “The Propensity Interpretation of Fitness,” in Sober, 2nd ed., pp. 3–24; 3rd ed., pp. 3–24.
  20. Millstein, Roberta L. (2006), “Natural Selection as a Population-Level Causal Process,” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57(4): 627-653.
  21. Millstein, Roberta L. (2002), “Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct?” Biology and Philosophy 17(1):33-53.
  22. Rosenberg, Alexander. “Instrumental Biology or the Disunity of Science.” (The University of Chicago Press, 1994), Chs. 1–2.
  23. Skipper, Robert A. and Millstein, Roberta L. (2005) “Thinking about Evolutionary Mechanisms: Natural Selection,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2): 327-347. Special edition on Mechanisms in Biology, edited by C.F. Craver and L. Darden.
  24. Sober, Elliott, and Richard C. Lewontin. “Artifact, cause and genic selection.” Philosophy of science (1982): 157-180.
  25. Sober, Elliott. “The Nature of Selection” (The University of Chicago Press, 1984), Ch. 3,
  26. Star, Susan Leigh, and James R. Griesemer. “Institutional ecology,translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39.” Social studies of science 19, no. 3 (1989): 387-420.
  27. Sterelny, Kim, and Philip Kitcher. “The return of the gene.” The Journal of Philosophy 85, no. 7 (1988): 339-361.
  28. Waters, C. Kenneth. “Genes made molecular.” Philosophy of Science (1994): 163-185.
  29. Watson, James D., and F. H. C. Crick. “Molecular structure of nucleic acids: A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences-Paper Edition 758 (1995): 12.
  30. Williams, George C. “Adaptation and Natural Selection.” (Princeton University Press, 1966), Introduction, Ch.2.. pp. 3–19, 20–55.
  31. Wilson, David Sloan “Levels of Selection,” in Sober, 2nd ed., pp. 143–154; 3rd ed., 63–78.
  32. Wimsatt, William C. “Genes, memes, and cultural heredity.” Biology and philosophy 14, no. 2 (1999): 279-310.
  33. Wright, Larry “Functions.” Philosophical Review 82 (1973), pp. 139–168. Reprinted in Sober, 2nd ed., pp. 27–48.

at UC Davis