Manipulability theories of causation, according to which causes are to be regarded as
handles or devices for manipulating effects, have considerable intuitive appeal and are …

Introduction: doing science in a complex world. Science by humans; Science in a complex
world; The payoff: idealizations and many aims--Complex causality and simplified …

The central insight of Darwin's Origin of Species is that evolution is an ecological
phenomenon, arising from the activities of organisms in the'struggle for life'. By contrast, the …

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically
omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the …

Accounts of scientific explanation have been a major focus of discussion in philosophy of
science for many decades. It is a presupposition of such accounts that science aims at (and …

Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s,
philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes could be …

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific
explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects …

Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning,
arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as …

Mumford outlines a major new theory of natural laws. His book begins with the question of
whether there are any genuinely law-like phenomena in nature. The discussion addresses …

John Dupré warns that our understanding of human nature is being distorted by two faulty
and harmful forms of pseudo-scientific thinking. Not just in the academic world but …