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  1. Towards a pluralistic concept of function function statements in biology.Rob Pranger - 1990 - Acta Biotheoretica 38 (1):63-71.
    The meaning of function statements is not clear. Several authors have come up with different explications. By interviewing biologists I tried to get a picture of how they think about function. Two explications of Feature X of organism S has function F came to the fore: (1) X contributes to F and F contributes to survival/reproduction of S and (2) X does F and that contributes to the evolutionary development of X in S via natural selection. Most biologists also related (...)
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  • Neutral functional statement schemata.Lowell Nissen - 1971 - Philosophy of Science 38 (2):251-257.
    The claim that there are nonpurposive functional statements is critically examined by looking at nine translation schemata, several of which are drawn from recent literature. All but one or two fail, suggesting that all functional statements (a) are causal (and not about probabilities or necessary conditions), and (b) have implicit reference to goals. If so, then the possibility of nonpurposive functional statements rests squarely on the possibility of nonpurposive goals.
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