Concepts and methods originating in one discipline can distort the structure of another when they are applied to the latter. I exemplify this mostly with reference to systematic biology, especially problems which have arisen in relation to the nature of species. Thus the received views of classes, individuals (which term I suggest be replaced by units to avoid misunderstandings), and sets are all inapplicable, but each can be suitably modified. The concept of fuzzy set was developed to deal with species (...) and I defend its applicability. Taxa at all levels are real and participate in biological processes. Analysis of cause and pattern provides the deep structure in which metabiology is grounded; violation of this principle has led to diverse errors in biology. (shrink)

In addition to the distinction between species as a category and speciesas a taxon, the word species is ambiguous in a very different butequally important way, namely the temporal distinction between horizontal andvertical species. Although often found in the relevant literature, thisdistinction has thus far remained vague and undefined. In this paper the use ofthe distinction is explored, an attempt is made to clarify and define it, andthen the relation between the two dimensions and the implications of thatrelation are examined. (...) Using Darwin's analogy of language evolution forspeciesevolution, and by appealing to a major change in the conception of languagebetween 19th- and 20th-century linguistics, it is argued that the horizontaldimension has priority (pragmatic, epistemological, logical, and ontological)over the vertical dimension. This has immense ramifications for the modernspecies problem. Fundamentally, it favors horizontal species concepts oververtical ones. In so doing it places species realism on a much more securefoundation and largely undercuts species pluralism. In addition it raises aserious problem for the increasingly popular family of phylogenetic speciesconcepts, which generally suffer from a dimensionality confusion. However,thereis a recent trend within this family that attempts to restore the priority ofthe horizontal dimension. It is concluded that this trend should be affirmedandthat the species-as-individuals view should be abandoned. (shrink)

Gayon's recent claim that Buffon developed a concept of species as physical individuals is critically examined and rejected. Also critically examined and rejected is Gayon's more central thesis that as a consequence of his analysis of Buffon's species concept, and also of Darwin's species concept, it is clear that modern evolutionary theory does not require species to be physical individuals. While I agree with Gayon's conclusion that modern evolutionary theory does not require species to be physical individuals, I disagree with (...) his reasons and instead provide logical rather than historical reasons for the same conclusion. (shrink)

Since the 1970s, there has been a tremendous amount of literature on Ghiselin's proposal that species are individuals. After recalling the origins and stakes of this thesis in contemporary evolutionary theory, I show that it can also be found in the writings of the French naturalist Buffon in the 18th Century. Although Buffon did not have the conception that one species could be derived from another, there is an interesting similarity between the modern argument and that of Buffon regarding the (...) individuality of species. The analogy is strong enough to force us to recognize that genuine evolutionary (or Darwinian) questions might be of secondary importance in the discussion. In consequence, the third section of the paper proposes an alternative schema for the logical structure of the Darwinian concept of species. Darwin distinguished the problem of the designation of a concrete species, and the problem of its signification of species within his theory of descent? The resulting notion of species involves a logical structure based on the fusion of the logical operations of classification and ordering. The difficulty — and interest — is that this interpretation of species does not entail any precise operational definition of species; it can only tell us what the ultimate signification of classification is within the theory of descent with modification through natural selection. (shrink)

This is the second of two articles in which I reflect on “generalized Darwinism” as currently discussed in evolutionary economics. In the companion article (Callebaut, Biol Theory 6. doi: 10.1007/s13752-013-0086-2, 2011, this issue) I approached evolutionary economics from the naturalistic perspectives of evolutionary epistemology and the philosophy of biology, contrasted evolutionary economists’ cautious generalizations of Darwinism with “imperialistic” proposals to unify the behavioral sciences, and discussed the continued resistance to biological ideas in the social sciences. Here I assess Generalized Darwinism (...) as propounded by Geoffrey Hodgson, Thorbjørn Knudsen, and others, concentrating on the roles of theory and model building in science (and the roles of analogy and metaphor therein), generative replication, and the relation between selection and self-organization. I then point to advances in current biology that promise to be more fruitful as sources of inspiration for evolutionary economics than the project to generalize Darwinism in its current, “hardened Modern Synthesis” form; and I draw some conclusions. (shrink)