Godfrey Smith’s book 27 Jul 2009 Peter Godfrey Smith is a leading philosopher of biology, a professor at Harvard. He has recently published an important book on the nature of evolution, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, in which he moves away from the gene centrism of Dawkins to a reproducer view in which objects that form populations are what is basic to evolution. Massimo Pigliucci has just posted a comment about it which summarises a lot of the reactions I had to the book: wow. Some of Peter’s comments are just obvious, once someone has said them. Massimo’s reaction is to Peter’s observation that genes are seen as paranoiac agents (hidden agents that have their own agenda). That’s one of mine, but my main one is that Peter treats populations as “the” unit of evolution. Read Pigliucci’s post, but work through the book. It’s hard work but worth it. Pigliucci is going to do a series of posts on it, too. Biology Book Evolution Philosophy Science
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Just out of curiosity, does Godfrey Smith make a distinction between the unit of selection and the unit of evolution? You refer to his book as a book on the nature of evolution but the title suggests that it is only about natural selection.
Ive held off looking at Dawkins and Dennett as I feel very uncomfortable with some of the views they express with regard to memes; particularly Dennett on folklore. I feel it’s a very limited perspective. Although as yet I have read little of his work, so my view of his approach is itself somewhat limited at the moment. This looks very intresting. I am off to grab a copy.
That’s one of mine, but my main one is that Peter treats populations are “the” unit of evolution. This would be a Platonic evolution that only exists in mathematical theory. But populations are vague at best, and in some cases (e.g. humans) there is considerable structure within populations. I would hope that “the” unit of evolution would be easily recognisable. But using populations is a bit like making “the” unit of length the distance from nose to fingertip.
Hence the scare quotes. Godfrey Smith has a very fine explanation of why he takes that tack, rather than the standard Lewontonian three conditions view. Basically a population has all the necessary conditions to undergo Darwinian evolution (which is primarily bit not entirely natural and other selection). [There. That will piss Larry off.]
I agree that a populations has all the necessary criteria for Darwinian evolution. It also has all the necessary criteria for the other, more frequent, mechanism of evolution at the population level, so why not just drop the unnecessary terms “Darwinian” and “selection”?
I am also off to head a copy. The excerpt from Pigliucci’s blog was indeed head-spinning, and on a track with some of my own thoughts about projecting intentionality lately. I’ve just read through Godfrey-Smith’s two essays on functions that you can get free from his website, and it looks like this will be a welcome extension of those. Is the book more about replicators or units of selection? Of course, the two are tied in all sorts of ways, but I’m having a hard time teasing out where the emphasis is from the previews.