Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the 'received view' o... more Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the 'received view' of human evolution, by tweaking our view of the innate character of morality. I argue that their intervention is hampered by an unnecessary commitment to nativism, by gender bias within the received view, and by liberal presuppositions.
Microbes are generally thought of as unicellular organisms, but we know that many microbes live a... more Microbes are generally thought of as unicellular organisms, but we know that many microbes live as parts of biofilms—complex, surface-attached microbial communities numbering millions of cells. Some authors have recently argued in favour of reconceiving biofilms as biological entities in their own right. In particular, some have claimed that multispecies biofilms are evolutionary individuals (Doolittle 2013; Ereshefsky and Pedroso 2015). Against this view, I defend the conservative consensus that selection acts primarily upon microbial cells.
An ‘evolutionary transition in individuality’ or ‘major transition’ is a transformation in the hi... more An ‘evolutionary transition in individuality’ or ‘major transition’ is a transformation in the hierarchical level at which
natural selection operates on a population. In this article I give an abstract (i.e. level-neutral and substrate-neutral)
articulation of the transition process in order to get precise about how such processes can happen, especially how they
can get started.
Biological theory demands a clear organism1 concept, but at
present biologists cannot agree on o... more Biological theory demands a clear organism1 concept, but at
present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that
counting particular units, and not counting others, allows
them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality that reconciles conflicting definitions of “organism” by interpreting them as describing alternative realizers of a common functional role, and then defines individual organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role.
From Groups to Individuals, edited by Huneman & Bouchard, Apr 2013
Why do we sometimes have trouble deciding whether something is an individual organism? Or how man... more Why do we sometimes have trouble deciding whether something is an individual organism? Or how many species of, say, birds, there are in a particular genus?
The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, wi... more The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, with fashion swinging back and forth from treating plants as communities of individuals (Darwin 1800; Braun and Stone 1853; Münch 1938) to treating them as organisms in their own right, and although the latter view has dominated mainstream thought most recently (Harper 1977; Cook 1985; Ariew and Lewontin 2004), a lively debate conducted mostly in Scandinavian journals proves that the issues are far from being resolved (Tuomi and Vuorisalo 1989b; Fagerström 1992; Pan and Price 2001). In this paper I settle the matter once and for all, by showing which elements of each side are correct.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2006
In A Darwinian left Peter Singer aims to reconcile Darwinian theory with left wing politics, usin... more In A Darwinian left Peter Singer aims to reconcile Darwinian theory with left wing politics, using evolutionary game theory and in particular a model proposed by Robert Axelrod, which shows that cooperation can be an evolutionarily successful strategy. In this paper I will show that whilst Axelrod's model can give support to a kind of left wing politics, it is not the kind that Singer himself envisages. In fact, it is shown that there are insurmountable problems for the idea of increasing Axelrodian cooperation within a welfare state. My surprising conclusion will be that a Darwinian left worthy of the name would be anarchistic.
Darwin's classic 'Origin of Species' (Darwin 1859) described forces of selection acting upon indi... more Darwin's classic 'Origin of Species' (Darwin 1859) described forces of selection acting upon individuals, but there remains a great deal of controversy about what exactly the status and definition of a biological individual is. Recently some authors have argued that the individual is dispensable -that an inability to pin it down is not problematic because little rests on it anyway. The aim of this paper is to show that there is a real problem of biological individuality, and an urgent need to arbitrate over the current plethora of solutions to it. key words: biological individual, organism, definition
Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the 'received view' o... more Buchanan and Powell hope to rescue optimism about moral perfectibility from the 'received view' of human evolution, by tweaking our view of the innate character of morality. I argue that their intervention is hampered by an unnecessary commitment to nativism, by gender bias within the received view, and by liberal presuppositions.
Microbes are generally thought of as unicellular organisms, but we know that many microbes live a... more Microbes are generally thought of as unicellular organisms, but we know that many microbes live as parts of biofilms—complex, surface-attached microbial communities numbering millions of cells. Some authors have recently argued in favour of reconceiving biofilms as biological entities in their own right. In particular, some have claimed that multispecies biofilms are evolutionary individuals (Doolittle 2013; Ereshefsky and Pedroso 2015). Against this view, I defend the conservative consensus that selection acts primarily upon microbial cells.
An ‘evolutionary transition in individuality’ or ‘major transition’ is a transformation in the hi... more An ‘evolutionary transition in individuality’ or ‘major transition’ is a transformation in the hierarchical level at which
natural selection operates on a population. In this article I give an abstract (i.e. level-neutral and substrate-neutral)
articulation of the transition process in order to get precise about how such processes can happen, especially how they
can get started.
Biological theory demands a clear organism1 concept, but at
present biologists cannot agree on o... more Biological theory demands a clear organism1 concept, but at
present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that
counting particular units, and not counting others, allows
them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality that reconciles conflicting definitions of “organism” by interpreting them as describing alternative realizers of a common functional role, and then defines individual organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role.
From Groups to Individuals, edited by Huneman & Bouchard, Apr 2013
Why do we sometimes have trouble deciding whether something is an individual organism? Or how man... more Why do we sometimes have trouble deciding whether something is an individual organism? Or how many species of, say, birds, there are in a particular genus?
The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, wi... more The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, with fashion swinging back and forth from treating plants as communities of individuals (Darwin 1800; Braun and Stone 1853; Münch 1938) to treating them as organisms in their own right, and although the latter view has dominated mainstream thought most recently (Harper 1977; Cook 1985; Ariew and Lewontin 2004), a lively debate conducted mostly in Scandinavian journals proves that the issues are far from being resolved (Tuomi and Vuorisalo 1989b; Fagerström 1992; Pan and Price 2001). In this paper I settle the matter once and for all, by showing which elements of each side are correct.
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2006
In A Darwinian left Peter Singer aims to reconcile Darwinian theory with left wing politics, usin... more In A Darwinian left Peter Singer aims to reconcile Darwinian theory with left wing politics, using evolutionary game theory and in particular a model proposed by Robert Axelrod, which shows that cooperation can be an evolutionarily successful strategy. In this paper I will show that whilst Axelrod's model can give support to a kind of left wing politics, it is not the kind that Singer himself envisages. In fact, it is shown that there are insurmountable problems for the idea of increasing Axelrodian cooperation within a welfare state. My surprising conclusion will be that a Darwinian left worthy of the name would be anarchistic.
Darwin's classic 'Origin of Species' (Darwin 1859) described forces of selection acting upon indi... more Darwin's classic 'Origin of Species' (Darwin 1859) described forces of selection acting upon individuals, but there remains a great deal of controversy about what exactly the status and definition of a biological individual is. Recently some authors have argued that the individual is dispensable -that an inability to pin it down is not problematic because little rests on it anyway. The aim of this paper is to show that there is a real problem of biological individuality, and an urgent need to arbitrate over the current plethora of solutions to it. key words: biological individual, organism, definition
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Papers by ellen clarke
natural selection operates on a population. In this article I give an abstract (i.e. level-neutral and substrate-neutral)
articulation of the transition process in order to get precise about how such processes can happen, especially how they
can get started.
present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that
counting particular units, and not counting others, allows
them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality that reconciles conflicting definitions of “organism” by interpreting them as describing alternative realizers of a common functional role, and then defines individual organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role.
natural selection operates on a population. In this article I give an abstract (i.e. level-neutral and substrate-neutral)
articulation of the transition process in order to get precise about how such processes can happen, especially how they
can get started.
present biologists cannot agree on one. They know that
counting particular units, and not counting others, allows
them to generate explanatory and predictive descriptions of evolutionary processes. Yet they lack a unified theory telling them which units to count. In this paper, I offer a novel account of biological individuality that reconciles conflicting definitions of “organism” by interpreting them as describing alternative realizers of a common functional role, and then defines individual organisms as essentially possessing some mechanisms that play this role.