Skip to content
You are not logged in |Login  
     
Limit search to available items
Record:   Prev Next
Resources
More Information
Bestseller
BestsellerE-book
Author Lewens, Tim.

Title Organisms and artifacts : design in nature and elsewhere / Tim Lewens.

Publication Info. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2004]
©2004

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xi, 183 pages).
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Series Life and mind: philosophical issues in biology and psychology
Life and mind.
Note "A Bradford Book."
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-176) and index.
Contents 1. Meaning and the means to an understanding of ends -- 2. Why is an eye? -- 3. Adaptationism and engineering -- 4. On five "-isms" -- 5. Function, selection, and explanation -- 6. Deflating function -- 7. Artifacts and organisms.
Summary In Organisms and Artifacts, Tim Lewens investigates the analogical use of the language of design in evolutionary biology. Uniquely among the natural sciences, biology uses descriptive and explanatory terms more suited to artifacts than organisms. When biologists discuss, for example, the purpose of the panda's thumb and look for functional explanations for organic traits, they borrow from a vocabulary of intelligent design that Darwin's findings could have made irrelevant over a hundred years ago. Lewens argues that examining the analogy between the processes of evolution and the processes by which artifacts are created -- looking at organisms as analogical artifacts -- sheds light on explanations of the form of both organic and inorganic objects. He argues further that understanding the analogy is important for what it can tell us not only about biology but about technology and philosophy. In the course of his argument, Lewens discusses issues of interest to philosophers of biology, biologists, philosophers of mind, and students of technology. These issues include the pitfalls of the design-based thinking of adaptationism, the possible conflict between selection explanations and developmental explanations, a proposed explanation of biological function, and prospects for an informative evolutionary model of technological change. Emerging from these discussions is an explanation of the use of the vocabulary of intelligence and intention in biology that does not itself draw on the ideas of intelligent design, which will be of interest in the ongoing debate over intelligent design creationism.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Biology -- Philosophy.
Biology -- Philosophy.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Other Form: Print version: Lewens, Tim. Organisms and artifacts. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2004 0262122618 (DLC) 2003061768 (OCoLC)52901501
ISBN 9780262278270 (electronic book)
0262278278 (electronic book)
0262122618
9780262122610
0262621991 (paperback)
9780262621991 (paperback)