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Adaptations in Psychology and in Biology Preliminary Program

4-5 June 2008
Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST)
13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris (2 nd floor) map

While early debates about adaptations were dominated by Gould and Lewontin’s critique of pan-adaptationism, the terms of the debate have changed. Current debates about adaptations in biology and in psychology are motivated by new developments in science: in biology, optimality models are increasingly sophisticated and are applied not only in behavioral ecology but in new fields such as morphology and microbiology; in psychology, evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology explicitly aim at applying a selectionist perspective on human cognitive dispositions and on human behaviors. The workshop will focus on the issues about adaptations and adaptationism raised by these new scientific developments.

Jason Byron (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptation and Species Selection

Thomas Cunningham (HPS, Pittsburgh), Natural Selection, Adaptation, and Fitness: On the Illusion of Perspectively Neutral Explanatory Roles

Jean-Louis Dessalles (Department Informatique & Réseaux, ENST, Paris), Language as an Adaptation

Jean Gayon (IHPST, Paris), TBA

Peter Gildenhuys (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptationist Reasoning and Applied Population Genetics

Philippe Huneman (IHPST, Paris), Adaptation and Multi-Level Selection

Yoichi Ishida, (HPS, Pittsburgh), The Optimality Argument for the 3/4-Power Scaling Law in Ecology

Tim Lewens (HPS, Cambridge), TBA

Sandra Mitchell (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptation and Complexity in Biological Systems

Edouard Machery (HPS, Pittsburgh), The Neurological Arguments against the Massive Modularity Hypothesis

Arnaud Pocheville (Paris V, FiV), Adaptation, Niche Construction and Extended Phenotypes

Aleta Quinn (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptationist Explanations: Opening the Black Box of Development

Stephen Stearns (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale), On Life History Theory and Adaptationism

François Taddei (Necker / Inserm, Paris), TBA

Minus Van Baalen (ENS / Paris VI, Paris), On Adaptive Dynamics

Hugo Viciana (IHPST), Cognitive Convergence Thesis Confronts the Idea of Co-Cursors

William Wimsatt (Philosophy, Chicago), Optimization vs. Satisficing

Contact

For questions, please contact the organizers: Edouard Machery (machery@pitt.edu) or Philippe Huneman (huneman@wanadoo.fr)

Sponsors

Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Technique