The Evolution of Darwinism

Notes on Contributors

The theme of Dr. Kuhn's paper is that Darwin's theory of evolution to explain the origin of species is inadequate, and that the 2010 decision by the Texas State Board of Education to require textbooks to present the weaknesses, as well as the strengths, of Darwin's theory was appropriate. The three limitations of Darwin's theory concern the origin of DNA, the irreducible complexity of the cell, and the paucity of transitional species. Because of these limitations, the author predicts a paradigm shift away from evolution to an alternative explanation. The intellectual problem, in my opinion, is not that evolution has “fatal defects,” but rather that it remains a suspect theory for most Americans >150 years after the publication of The Origin of Species (1859). While the Texas State Board of Education may have debated the issue for 3 full days in 2010, its recommendation in the end will probably be ignored by scientists who write textbooks. I suppose the Texas decision represents progress. Tennessee's Butler Act made it unlawful to teach evolution, giving rise to the Scopes trial in 1925, in which John T. Scopes, a high school teacher, was accused of violating that law. After an 8-day trial, a guilty verdict was reached. To embrace the idea that all forms of life, great and small, plant and animal, primate and nonprimate, were derived from a common primordial cell or organism requires a scientific perspective. The various religions, current and extinct, typically elevate humans above other forms of life. Most Homo sapiens believe that the different species on planet earth were created independently by a God, in sequential batches, placed in certain locales, with the Homo sapiens inherently superior, made in the image of the creator—thus, the resistance to the concept of evolution. With respect to the origin of DNA as a weakness of Darwinism, our knowledge of DNA, from my reading, has added to, not subtracted from, the evidence of evolution. In the 2006 preface to the 30th anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene (first published by Oxford University Press in 1976), author Richard Dawkins wrote: The correct word of the title to stress is “gene” and let me explain why. A central debate within Darwinism concerns the unit that is actually selected: what kind of entity is it that survives, or does not survive, as a consequence of natural selection. That unit will become, more or less by definition, “selfish.” … Let me repeat and expand the rationale for the word “selfish” in the title. The critical question is which level in the hierarchy of life will turn out to be the inevitably “selfish” level, at which natural selection acts? The Selfish Species? The Selfish Group? The Selfish Organism? The Selfish Ecosystem? Most of these could be argued, and most have been uncritically assumed by one or another author, but all of them are wrong. Given that the Darwinian message is going to be pithily encapsulated as The Selfish Something, that something turns out to be the gene, for cogent reasons which this book argues. The notion of “irreducible complexity” in a cell, as an argument against evolution, is beyond my present understanding. Knowing that life has existed on planet earth for billions of years, however, I suspect that there has been time enough for evolution, no matter how complex, with reducibility. With respect to transitional species, a brief glance through recent issues of National Geographic shows no paucity of data from paleontologists. Human lineage can be traced back >6 million years, with fossils discovered in East Africa from all three major phases of hominid evolution—Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, and Homo—with a divergence from living ape species (chimpanzee and bonobos) roughly 8 to 6 million years ago. Transitional species have been identified in numerous other groups. The whale, for example, accomplished an enormous transformation, with fossil evidence. Fifty million years ago it was semi-terrestrial; now it is fully aquatic. Seven billion Homo sapiens now inhabit planet earth. World population in ad 1 (the time of Christ) was about 200 million. In the struggle for survival in the next century and beyond, the hand of natural selection will be at work, I believe, and evidence of evolution, to explain the origin, modification, and behavior of species, will continue to increase. Editor's note: Gregory Dimijian, MD, is also preparing a full-length article on Darwinism, which Proceedings will publish in an upcoming issue.

Bold flights of a speculative mind

The occasion for this comment is the recent publication of Unified Three-Dimensional Framework of Theory Construction and Development in Sociology (Liao 1990). Its motive is broader, however. From the inception of the social sciences, essays either have recommended how scientific theory should be developed, as in parts of Marx's Grundrisse ([1857] 1973), or have evaluated the possibility of such development, as in Weber's Roscher und Knies ([1903] 1975). A few years ago a symposium of papers published in this journal discussed whether scientific laws and theory could be developed (DiRenzo 1987; Halfpenny 1987; Klein 1987; Turner 1987; Walker 1987; Zaret 1987). Like Liao, the writers in the symposium were concerned with the possibility of formal, scientific theory in the future. In 1990, at a theory construction conference funded by the National Science Foundation, six of eight papers focused on the failure of sociology to develop formal theory. These recent works commit a common error. All were written as if there were no body of scientific theory in sociology. On the contrary, use of formal, mathematical, and scientific theory is now a going concern in sociology-and has been for some years. Many sociologists are engaged in extending and applying this kind of theory every working day, and we certainly are not trying to hide it. Liao's paper, the papers of the symposium, and the conference papers all effectively ignore a substantial body of published work in which theory is built, applied, extended, and applied again. This is a substantial body of well-established practice. Herein lies an irony: some of the papers that ignore this growing body of work are written by people who are engaged daily in the work of theoretical sociology. Nor should this be surprising. Scientific theory of nontrivial scope has been so long in coming that some who engage regularly in theory work find themselves still defending it as a possibility. Although the theory construction movement can be traced to Merton's 1949 paper on middle-range theory, it gained direction in the 1960s and early 1970s, when a number of books were published purporting to explain how theory should be constructed. A partial list would include works by Dubin (1969), Gibbs (1972), Hage (1972), Reynolds (1971), Wallace (1971), Willer (1967), and Zetterberg (1963). This attempt to reform theory and theory use in sociology owed much to philosophers of science, particularly Popper and Hempel. There is a reason why so much was owed to philosophy of science, and as author of one of those works I can explain why. By rejecting the statistically based methods of sociology, we were groping for a theory-based method and looked to more advanced sciences for enlightenment. Unlike the social sciences with which we were acquainted, however, the more advanced sciences have no methods books. Not finding the methods books of more advanced sciences, we studied philosophers of science as surrogates.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A New Introduction, 3rd edition by Alister E. McGrath. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2020. 272 pages. Paperback; $28.99. ISBN: 9781119599876. *Alister McGrath is a major international scholar who is prolific in his output. He has produced many popular books and academic tomes, and as a theological educator his output also includes many textbooks for students. Science and Religion: A New Introduction is now into its third edition and is an excellent introduction to the whole field of science and religion. The restructuring and inclusion of new material is designed to be helpful to the student, and reflects comments on the previous editions. The book introduces most of the areas of interaction between these bodies of thought, and I myself have used earlier editions in my own teaching, giving students a chapter of McGrath to start with for an essay, followed by more detailed material from elsewhere. *McGrath notes that science and religion are wide categories and serious study entails narrowing them down. He describes Ian Barbour's four models for interaction followed by what he calls four ways of imagining the relationship between them. The conflict model is rightly dismissed as a late nineteenth-century myth, and areas where conflict has been perceived, notably with Galileo and Darwin, are given the more nuanced treatment they deserve, thus dispelling the myths surrounding them. McGrath also gives a broader historical overview, refuting the further myth that the scientific revolution owed nothing to the medieval period. He describes the development of the Newtonian mechanistic model of the universe and brings us to the twentieth century with the development of the Big Bang theory. Regarding this last, it would have been good to note the pioneering work of Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, often dubbed the "Father of the Big Bang," who, in contrast to Alexander Friedman, regarded solutions of Einstein's equations as physically realistic and not just mathematical curiosities. *McGrath moves on to a helpful chapter on religion and the philosophy of science. Some form of realism seems predominant and, indeed, the most rational position to take. It is interesting to note the adoption of "critical realism," including not only by science-religion scholars such as John Polkinghorne and others, but also such as the biblical scholar N. T. Wright and James Dunn. McGrath moves on to the role of explanation in science, noting how in science there are different methods for different sciences, and thus different levels of explanation across the different subdisciplines. Theology too has its own methods appropriate to its own object but there are differing views on the role of explanation. He discusses an important case study, that of "non-reductive physicalism" associated with Nancey Murphy and others. He also gives criteria for drawing an "inference to the best explanation." Various perspectives on the philosophy of science--logical positivism and the criteria of verification, falsificationism, and Kuhn's paradigm shifts--are discussed. Worthy of mention here would have been Imre Lakatos whose "methodology of scientific research programmes" has been applied to theology by Philip Hefner and Nancey Murphy. *Complementing the above there follows a useful chapter on science and the philosophy of religion. McGrath describes arguments for the existence of God, beginning with Aquinas's five ways. A section on the Kalām cosmological argument notes how this has been given a new lease on life by the Big Bang theory's postulation of a temporal origin to the universe, although it would have been good to note that the existence of the universe would demand an explanation even if it were to lack a temporal origin. He gives a careful analysis of Paley's natural theology, noting neglected aspects of Paley's work such as his responses to arguments of David Hume. He examines ways in which God may act in the world given the laws of nature uncovered by science, including through miracles, where he notes Hume's critique. However, as McGrath rightly says, Hume's critique needs to be qualified, since, on the one hand, he defines miracles as violations of laws of nature and yet, on the other, has a problem with inductive generalizations from past experience--which is just what laws of nature are. McGrath rightly sees evolutionary arguments debunking religion as committing the genetic fallacy and self-defeating if human rationality is flawed, since that could equally well affect judgments in areas other than religion, notably science. There is a good section on natural theology and the role of explanation. *In the next chapter, McGrath turns to models and analogies: first, as found within the natural sciences and then, within religion. After considering what the terms mean more generally, he gives specific examples for the sciences, including the kinetic theory of gases, wave-particle duality, Galileo's analogical reasoning which led him to postulate mountains on the moon, and Darwin's metaphor of "natural selection." In the theological sphere, he considers Aquinas's notion of analogia entis whereby the creation bears a likeness to its creator, and Ian Ramsey's model of the "divine economy" utilizing the Greek concept of oikonomia. He looks at Arthur Peacocke's theological application of models as linked to "critical realism," and Sally McFague's metaphors in theology--though he could perhaps have allowed more than one sentence on Janet Soskice. He then examines specific theological examples: creation and theories of the atonement. He has a helpful section on the notion of "mystery" in science and religion before returning to Ian Barbour on models. *McGrath's final chapter considers a number of contemporary debates. Noting Hume's distinction between "ought" and "is" he critiques the idea that science, say, evolutionary biology or neuroscience, can determine ethics and moral values. That leads to a more general critique of the imperialist stance that science can answer all interesting questions or that the only reality is that disclosed by science. An interesting example is mathematics, which discovers truths that do not belong to the natural sciences. It is also utterly astonishing that mathematics is effective in describing nature and very hard to explain on an atheistic view. *An important area considered is theodicy, which is arguably made more difficult by the long process of evolution, preceding the existence of humans by hundreds of millions of years. McGrath provides an overview of the helpful contributions of Christopher Southgate and his former student Bethany Sollereder. For these scholars, there is "no other way" for God to create such a rich diversity of creatures, with whom God suffers, and for whom God will bring eschatological fulfilment. On transhumanism, McGrath describes the approaches of Philip Hefner and Ted Peters who, while recognizing the creativity of technological enhancement, are also aware that, given fallen human nature, this can also be abused. *McGrath returns to the anthropic principle and fine-tuning. He says that fine-tuning is strongly consistent with a theistic perspective, but the debate about a multiverse as a possible explanation continues. He also considers the legitimacy of teleological language and directionality in biology. Simon Conway Morris's notion of convergent evolution may be the "best explanation" of what is observed and is resonant with a religious perspective but, like cosmological fine-tuning, does not prove that God exists. *McGrath concludes with two sections on the psychology of religion, considering whether this field can "explain away" religion. Religion may be "natural," but it is debatable as to whether that has any implication at all about the existence of God. Moreover, it is a long way from primitive apprehension of some vague supernatural agent to the systematic theology of, say, Thomas Aquinas or Karl Barth. To my mind, this is not unlike the difference--to give a scientific analogy--between the discovery of fire by early humans and the modern scientific understanding of combustion. *This is an excellent introduction to the field and very well suited to its pedagogic purpose. There are a few typographical errors (e.g., "magisterial" for "magisteria"). I also noticed that British cosmologist Paul Davies is mistakenly described as American. But these and my earlier minor points should not detract from a volume that provides a vital resource to educators and their students. *Reviewed by Rodney Holder, Emeritus Course Director, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge, UK CB3 0UB.

The Vedas and Puranas serve as foundational texts for Hindu law and spiritual philosophy, with the Puranas being a vast collection of Sanskrit scriptures that encompass a wide range of subjects, particularly mythological stories, legends, and traditional lore. Many of these texts are dedicated to major Hindu deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma, and Adi Shakti. The Puranic corpus includes 18 principal Puranas and 18 subsidiary Puranas. Among them, the Vishnu Purana holds special significance for its detailed accounts of Lord Vishnu and his incarnations. This research paper presents a comparative study of two distinct worldviews on the origin and development of life: Charles Darwin’s scientific Theory of Evolution and the mythological narrative of Lord Vishnu’s Dashavatara, as outlined in the Vishnu Purana. The Dashavatara describes ten divine incarnations through which Lord Vishnu restores balance and order in the cosmos during different epochs of turmoil and transition. This study explores how Darwin's theory, grounded in natural selection and adaptation—first expounded in his seminal work ‘’On the Origin of Species’’—explains the diversity of species through a gradual, scientifically verifiable process of change over time. Conversely, the Dashavatara presents a theological framework where divine intervention shapes the trajectory of life on Earth. Despite the fundamental differences in approach—one empirical and the other mythological—both narratives trace a developmental sequence beginning with aquatic life and culminating in advanced human forms. In doing so, they offer profound insights into the human understanding of existence, evolution, and cosmic purpose. By examining these two traditions side by side, the paper highlights the intellectual richness and cultural diversity that shape how civilizations have sought to explain the origins and progression of life, be it through science or sacred story.

Author's Introduction Whereas Creationism is usually taught in the context of religion and the history/philosophy of science, this guide has been written in the conviction that creationism is not ultimately about science at all, but is rather about the status of the Bible in the modern world. Creationism as a modern ideology exists in order to defend the authority of the Bible as a repository of trans‐historical truth from the challenges of any and all historical sciences. It belongs to and is inseparable from Protestant Fundamentalists’ desire to resubject the modern world to the authority of the inerrant Bible. Intelligent Design Creationism, to the extent that it distinguishes itself from reactionary biblicism, is a program advocating a supernaturalist, providentialist understanding of the world. This guide outlines an approach to teaching about creationism that situates it in relation to the development, from the early modern period onwards, of the historical, critical study of the Bible and the liberal theology that followed from that study, as well as from the more familiar perspectives of the history and philosophy of science. Annotated Reading List Forrest, Barbara and Paul Gross. Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. A thoughtful critique of Intelligent Design Creationism and a well‐documented expose of the wider cultural program of its proponents. Kitcher, Philip. Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design and the Future of Faith . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. A philosopher of science argues that Intelligent Design Creationism is ‘dead science’ rather than non‐science, and then reflects on the religious costs of accepting Darwinism. Larson, Edward. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. The best of the voluminous literature on the Scopes Trial. McCalla, Arthur. The Creationist Debate: The Encounter between the Bible and the Historical Mind . London & New York: Continuum, 2006. A wide‐ranging intellectual history study arguing that the debate between creationists and evolutionists is not only about the content of evolutionary and other historical sciences, but also about historical‐mindedness in relation to the status of the Bible in the modern world. Numbers, Ronald. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2nd ed. 2006. This new edition of Numbers’ standard work has been expanded to include discussion of Intelligent Design. Pennock, Robert (ed.). Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives . Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001. A valuable compendium of key articles by leading proponents of Intelligent Design Creationism and their critics. Rossi, Paolo. The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico , Lydia Cochrane (trans.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984. An intellectual history study of how what came to be called geology and anthropology challenged biblical chronology in the early modern period. Ruse, Michael. Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. An accessibly written account of the history and present‐day status of the design argument. Online Materials 1. http://www.ncseweb.org This site of the National Center for Science Education, an organization that defends the teaching of evolution in public schools, monitors anti‐evolution activity in the USA and around the world, provides scientific criticism and historical analysis of creationist claims, and reviews recent publications and videos. 2. http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf This is Judge John E. Jones’ 138‐page Memorandum Opinion in Kitzmiller v Dover (2005), the Pennsylvania test case on the constitutionality of teaching Intelligent Design Creationism in public schools. 3. http://www.talkorigins.org A Usenet newsgroup on the creation/evolution controversy and related topics. The site includes an archive of mainstream scientific responses to frequently asked questions in the group and refutations of creationist claims. 4. http://www.icr.org and http://www.answersingenesis.org These are two influential young‐earth creationist websites, maintained by the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis, respectively. 5. http://www.discovery.org/csc This is the home site of the Discovery Institute, whose Center for Science and Culture spearheads the movement for Intelligent Design. Sample Syllabus This sample syllabus includes readings appropriate to both general‐level courses (indicated by A ) and advanced or seminar courses ( B ). 1. The Earth Acquires A History A Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth

Research on the contribution that the history and philosophy of science can make to theteaching of science has established itself as a dynamic scientific field. The internationalcommunity of researchers continues to expand, publications on the subject are steadilyincreasing in number, and Science & Education journal continually increases its impactand reputation. In Greece, since 2001, a community of researchers and teachers has beencreated and has organized successive Greek conferences on History, Philosophy andScience Teaching. The conference, from which papers were selected for this special issue,was the 5th conference. It, like the previous conferences, had as its basic target to promotean in-depth examination of the interplay between the history and the philosophy of scienceand the teaching of science.The 5th Conference on History, Philosophy and Science Teaching was held in Nicosia,Cyprus, between 11 and 14 of June 2009. The organizing committee intended to broadenthe character of the conference by inviting not only Greek speaking scientists andresearchers but also scientists and researchers from all over the world to participate. A firststep towards this direction was the invitation to distinguished foreign scientists to presenttheir work, as well as the organization of an English-speaking symposium.The theme of the 5th Conference was ‘‘The Great Scientific Theories in the Teaching ofthe Natural Sciences’’. The conference sought to reveal the interaction between the greatscientific theories and science teaching, and especially the interaction between the Dar-winian theory and science teaching highlighting questions concerning the impact of Dar-winian theory for our general conception of scientific theories and for science teaching. Anexample is the extent to which contemporary discussions concerning the universality of thescientific laws, the limits of their application, and the type of explanation of the scientific

In 1858 papers were presented on evolution at the Linnean Society in London by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The following year Darwin's magnum opus was published—On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. With the plethora of publications in recent years on molecular genetics and related matters it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the enormous impact Darwin's work had at the time. Of course, writers on the subject have given much attention to the British Association for Advancement of Science meeting in Oxford the following year with the notorious clash between Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce. But the arguments were rehearsed in different guises over many of the following years. Even today commentaries on the subject by Richard Dawkins and Steve Jones in this country and Steven J Gould in the United States still attract a great deal of understandable attention from both scientists and non-scientists. But perhaps it is not always fully realized and appreciated that at the time nothing was known of the genetic mechanisms by which species could evolve. Though Gregor Mendel's seminal papers on inheritance and the segregation of hereditary factors were presented in 1865 and published the following year his ideas, essential to any in-depth understanding of the origin of species and evolution, remained virtually unknown until 1900. Even then, those who realized their importance in the scheme of things, such as William Bateson, were sometimes misunderstood or disregarded. In his scholarly study, Forsdyke details the thinking among philosophers and scientists around the time of Darwin's publication who attempted to explain the most serious difficulties with Darwin's theory—namely, how could small initial variations lacking any apparent value to the individual (so-called ‘non-adaptive’) lead to the establishment of a new species without being swamped by intercrossing with its neighbours? Having outlined this and related problems, the author singles out for special mention George Romanes (1848-1894). Born in Kingston, Canada (where Forsdyke now lives), in early childhood Romanes accompanied his parents to England and later studied physiology at Cambridge and University College, London. He engaged in research on echinoderms and medusae, for example, and became a close friend of Darwin. Forsdyke here concentrates his attention on Romanes' theory of ‘physiological selection’ which he expounded in 1886, also at the Linnean Society. He proposed that physiological selection, by preventing intercrossing, enables natural selection to promote diversity and thereby evolution, and that sterility of the offspring of crosses between species (such as occurs in the mule, resulting from crossing a horse and donkey) was the natural result of ‘some physiological change having exclusive, reference to the sexual system...’ a concept which in Forsdyke's view anticipated modern developments in genetics. Incidentally the portraits of all three of the main characters in this story (Darwin, Huxley and Romanes) were painted by the Victorian artist John Collier (1850-1934) who married Huxley's two daughters in succession after the first had died. The portraits are reproduced here but not in colour unfortunately. This is a scholarly and very well referenced work. It will certainly appeal to all those with an interest in the thinking of Victorian philosophers and scientists as they struggled to understand how new species could arise and evolve.

Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection stands as the cornerstone of modern biology. Yet, its formulation and reception occurred against the backdrop of pre-existing evolutionary ideas, most notably Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, often summarized as "use and disuse." This paper provides a comprehensive comparison of these two pivotal theories, examining their core concepts, historical contexts, and crucially, their evaluation in light of modern science. We detail Lamarck's vision of organisms actively adapting through use and disuse of organs, passing these modifications directly to offspring. We contrast this with Darwin's mechanism of natural selection, where heritable variation within populations is acted upon by environmental pressures, leading to differential survival and reproduction. The historical analysis explores the intellectual climate of the 18th and 19th centuries, the influence of Lamarck on Darwin's thinking, and the fierce debates surrounding the publication of On the Origin of Species. Modern scientific evaluation, grounded in genetics, molecular biology, and rigorous experimentation, overwhelmingly supports the core tenets of natural selection as the primary driver of adaptation and evolutionary change. While Lamarckian inheritance, as originally conceived, has been falsified, the paper explores nuances such as epigenetic inheritance and phenotypic plasticity, demonstrating how they differ fundamentally from Lamarckism while enriching our understanding of organism-environment interactions. Ultimately, this comparison highlights the revolutionary nature of Darwin's theory, its enduring explanatory power, and why Lamarck's "use and disuse," despite its historical importance and intuitive appeal, remains relegated to the annals of superseded scientific ideas, save for very specific and limited modern reinterpretations.

Empirical investigations use empirical methods, data, and evidence. This banal observation appears to favour empiricism, especially in philosophy of science, though no rationalist ever denied their importance. Natural sciences often provide what appear to be, and are taken by scientists as, realist, causal explanations of natural phenomena, often in terms of forces or entities we do not perceive with our normal, unaided human senses. Empiricism has never been congenial to realism about such scientific posits. Bas van Fraassen’s “Constructive Empiricism” purports that realist interpretations of any “unobservables” mentioned by a scientific theory in principle always transcend whatever can be justified by that theory’s empirical adequacy, and that “explanations” are merely pragmatic, insofar as they are context‑specific to the presuppositions of whomever poses the question an explanation is to answer. Here I argue that “Constructive Empiricism” rests upon a series of flawed presumptions about natural science and about epistemology. I draw upon two main resources. One resource is the constraints upon specifically c ognitive reference to particulars, first identified by Kant (and later by Evans). The second is William Harper’s (2011) brilliant re‑analysis and defense of Newton’s Prin c ipia , which shows that, and how, Newton justified his realism about gravitational force. One surprise is that Kant’s semantics of singular cognitive reference (examined in §3) directly and strongly supports Newton’s Rule 4 of scientific method (§4), which strongly supports his realism about gravi‑ tational force (summarized in §2). A further surprise is that Hegel first recognized that this semantics of singular cognitive reference directly and strongly supports Newton’s meth odological Rule 4 of experimental philosophy in ways which support Newton’s realism about gravitational force, and about distance forces generally. The textual and exegetical issues these attributions require I examine elsewhere. Here I make these important findings available to philosophers and historians of science. (*) Invited paper

Darwinian Case Studies Within a Post-16 Programme for the History and Philosophy of Science: The Perspectives on Science Course

Previous article No AccessReviewsNANCY J. NERSESSIAN, [1984]: Faraday to Einstein: Constructing Meaning in Scientific Theories. Martinus Nijhoff. Pp. xiv + 196 (ISBN 90-247-2997-1).JARRETT LEPLINJARRETT LEPLINUniversity of North CarolinaGreensboro Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Volume 38, Number 4December 1987 Society: The British Society for the Philosophy of Science Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/38.4.575 Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref © 1987 by The Author. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Dudley Shapere Leplin on Essentialism, Philosophy of Science 58, no.44 (Oct 2015): 655–677.https://doi.org/10.1086/289646 Nancy J. Nersessian The Method to "Meaning": A Reply to Leplin, Philosophy of Science 58, no.44 (Oct 2015): 678–686.https://doi.org/10.1086/289647 Jarrett Leplin Is Essentialism Unscientific?, Philosophy of Science 55, no.44 (Oct 2015): 493–510.https://doi.org/10.1086/289458

Russian pedagogical community has recently faced a new challenge generated by the introduction of emerging conceptual framework for doctoral education treated as the third level of higher education system. The framework for doctoral education covers some typical study programs such as “Methods & technics of pedagogical research” as well as some new ones, including “Academic writing” and competence-based teaching for the traditional postgraduate training. Our argument concerns the course syllabus “History & philosophy of science” aimed at developing the research skills of doctoral students in education. This course is an integral part of the emerging system for doctoral training in Russia. We analyze some philosophical foundations of contemporary pedagogical science, including logical empiricism, Popper’s falsifiability, Paradigm Thesis by Thomas Kuhn, science theories by Paul Feyerabend and Stephen Toulmin, as well as correspondence, pragmatic, conventional and coherent theories of truth. We examine the impact of philosophy of science on methodology of pedagogical education in the context of the history of pedagogical thought. Our conclusion is that despite their poor logical conditions, pedagogical science and research methods benefit from the ideas of philosophy of science that also contributes greatly to the subfield of pedagogical methodology. We seek to optimize the study program of doctoral training syllabus “History and philosophy of science” for doctoral students in education.

The article evaluates how diversity in organisms, a concept that can be traced back to the postulations of evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin, derive from alterations in DNA. A brief overview of Darwin's theories set forth in his book "The Origin of Species" is presented. While Darwin could not explain the force behind variants, the scientist Gregor Mendel later described genetic factors and inheritance patterns. The advents in DNA sequencing and genome mapping are discussed. INSETS: Seeking Variation;STICKLEBACKS ADAPT;Mutations Meet Culture.