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What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline
Abstract
This book, a collection of essays written by the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century, explores biology as an autonomous science, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the contributions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major ongoing issues in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its own history, trajectory and impact. Natural selection is a separate idea from common descent, and from geographic speciation, and so on. A number of the perennial Darwinian controversies may well have been caused by the confounding of the five separate theories into a single composite. Those interested in evolutionary theory, or the philosophy and history of science will find useful ideas in this book, which should appeal to virtually anyone with a broad curiosity about biology.
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“The summary representation of any emotion category is an abstraction that need not exist in nature”
From The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization (2016) · cites this paper as Mayr, 2004
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“Despite some of life’s unique features (Mayr, 2004) all basic life processes remain in principle explainable within the constraints of normal physics and chemistry.”
From Phenomenal Consciousness and Emergence: Eliminating the Explanatory Gap (2020) · cites this paper as Mayr, 2004
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Metadata
- Authors
- Mayr, E.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mayr, Ernst
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 2004-08-09
- OpenAlex
- W2889338382
- Cited by
- 486
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 25 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 57.45
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cambridge University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy of Biology and Scientific Explanation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Evolution and Science Education
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Keywords
- evolutionary theory, history of evolutionary theory, philosophy of biology, natural selection, common ancestry, allopatric speciation, Darwinian evolution, Ernst Mayr
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