Science, Politics, and Evolution

This book brings together important essays by one of the leading philosophers of science at work today. Elisabeth A. Lloyd examines several of the central topics in philosophy of biology, including the structure of evolutionary theory, units of selection, and evolutionary psychology, as well as the Science Wars, feminism and science, and sexuality and objectivity. Lloyd challenges the current evolutionary accounts of the female orgasm and analyses them for bias. She also offers an innovative analysis of the concept of objectivity. Lloyd analyses the structure of evolutionary theory and unlocks the puzzle of the units of selection debates into four distinct aspects, illuminating several mysteries in the biology literature. Central to all essays in this book is the author’s abiding concern for evidence and empirical data.

• Includes a case study on the female orgasm, one of the author’s most controversial and best known areas of study • Contains essays on feminism and objectivity analysis • Health and normality

1. The nature of Darwin’s support for the theory of natural selection; 2. A semantic approach to the structure of population genetics; 3. Confirmation of evolutionary and ecological models; 4. Species selections on variability; 5. An open letter to Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, regarding their book, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior; 6. Problems with pluralism; 7. Normality and variation: the human genome project and the ideal human type; 8. Evolutionary psychology: the burdens of proof; 9. Objectivity and the double standard for feminist epistemologies; 10. Science and anti-science: objectivity and its real enemies; 11. Pre-theoretical assumptions in evolutionary explanations of female sexuality.