A critical review of the statisticalist debate

作者：Otsuka Jun^*

来源：Biology and Philosophy, 2016, 31(4): 459-482.

DOI：10.1007/s10539-016-9528-0

• Statisticalism
• Evolutionary genetics
• Causal models
• Selection
• Drift
• Fitness

Over the past decade philosophers of biology have discussed whether evolutionary theory is a causal theory or a phenomenological study of evolution based solely on the statistical features of a population. This article reviews this controversy from three aspects, respectively concerning the assumptions, applications, and explanations of evolutionary theory, with a view to arriving at a definite conclusion in each contention. In so doing I also argue that an implicit methodological assumption shared by both sides of the debate, namely the overconfidence in conceptual analysis as a tool to understand the scientific theory, is the real culprit that has both generated the problem and precluded its solution for such a long time.

• 出版日期2016-7