Informed answers to questions like these, critical to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, require both a knowledge of biology and a philosophical framework within which to make sense of its findings. In this accessible introduction to philosophy of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the most exciting debates shaping biology today. The authors, both of whom have published extensively in this field, describe the range of competing viewsincluding their ownon these fascinating topics.

With its clear explanations of both biological and philosophical concepts, Sex and Death will appeal not only to undergraduates, but also to the many general readers eager to think critically about the science of life.

Part I - Theory Really Matters: Philosophy of Biology and Social Issues

1.1. The Science of Life Itself

1.2. Is There an Essential Human Nature?

1.3. Is Genuine Altruism Possible?

1.4. Are Human Beings Programmed by Their Genes?

1.5. Biology and the Pre-emption of Social Science

1.6. What Should Conservationists Conserve?

2. The Received View of Evolution

2.1. The Diversity of Life

2.2. Evolution and Natural Selection

2.3. The Received View and Its Challenges

Part II - Genes, Molecules, and Organisms

3. The Gene's Eye View of Evolution

3.1. Replicators and Interactors

3.2. The Special Status of Replicators

3.3. The Bookkeeping Argument

3.4. The Extended Phenotype

4. The Organisim Strikes Back

4.1. What Is a Gene?

4.2. Genes Are Active Germ Line Replicators

4.3. Genes Are Difference Makers

5. The Developmental Systems Alternative

5.1. Gene Selectionism and Development

5.2. Epigenetic Inheritance and Beyond

5.3. The Interactionist Consensus

5.4. Information in Development

5.5. Other Grounds for Privileging Genes

5.6. Developmental Systems and Extended Replicators

5.7. One True Story?

6. Mendel and Molecules

6.1. How Theories Relate: Displacement, Incorporation, and Integration

6.2. What Is Mendelian Genetics?

6.3. Molecular Genetics: Transcription and Translation

6.4. Gene Regulation

6.5. Are Genes Protein Makers?

7. Reduction: For and Against

7.1. The Antireductionist Consensus

7.2. Reduction by Degrees?

7.3. Are Genes DNA Sequences Plus Contexts?

7.4. The Reductionist Anticonsensus

Part III - Organisms, Groups, and Species

8. Organisms, Groups, and Superorganisms

8.1. Interactors

8.2. The Challenge of Altruism

8.3. Group Selection: Take 1

8.4. Group Selection: Take 2

8.5. Population-Structured Evolution

8.6. Organisms and Superorganisms

9. Species

9.1. Are Species Real?

9.2. The Nature of Species

9.3. The One True Tree of Life

9.4. Species Selection

Part IV - Evolutionary Explanations

10. Adaptation, Perfection, Function

10.1. Adaptation

10.2. Function

10.3. The Attack on Adaptationism

10.4. What Is Adaptationism?

10.5. Structuralism and the Bauplan

10.6. Optimality and Falsifiability

10.7. Adaptation and the Comparative Method

11. Adaptation, Ecology, and the Environment

11.1. The Received View in Ecology

11.2. History and Theory in Ecology

11.3. The Balance of Nature

11.4. Niches and Organisms

11.5. Reconstructing Niches

11.6. Unfinished Business

12. Life on Earth: The Big Picture

12.1. The Arrow of Time and the Ladder of Progress

12.2. Gould's Challenge

12.3. What Is Disparity?

12.4. Contingency and Its Consequences

12.5. Mass Extinction and the History of Life

12.6. Conclusions

Part V - Evolution and Human Nature

13. From Sociobiology to Evolutionary Psychology

13.1. 1975 and All That

13.2. The Wilson Program

13.3. From Darwinian Behaviorism to Darwinian Psychology

13.4. Evolutionary Psychology and Its Promise

13.5. Evolutionary Psychology and Its Problems

13.6. Memes and Cultural Evolution

14. A Case Study: Evolutionary Theories of Emotion

14.1. Darwin on the Emotions

14.2. Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology on the Emotions

14.3. The Modular Emotions

14.4. Beyond the Modular Emotions

14.5. Emotion, Evolution, and Evolved Psychology

Part VI - Concluding Thoughts

15. What Is Life?

15.1. Defining Life

15.2. Universal Biology

15.3. Simulation and Emergence

Final Thoughts

Glossary

References

Index