New Essentialism in Biology

被引：17

作者：

Rieppel, Olivier ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Field Museum Nat Hist, Dept Geol, Chicago, IL 60605 USA

来源：

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE | 2010年 / 77卷 / 05期

关键词：

PHYLOGENETIC SYSTEMATICS; NATURAL KINDS; EVOLUTION; TAXONOMY; LIFE; CLASSIFICATION; METAPHYSICS; MODULES; TREE;

D O I：

10.1086/656539

中图分类号：

N09 [自然科学史]; B [哲学、宗教];

学科分类号：

01 ; 0101 ; 010108 ; 060207 ; 060305 ; 0712 ;

摘要：

The architects of the modern synthesis banned essentialism from evolutionary theory. This rejection of essentialism was motivated by Darwin's theory of natural selection, and the continuity of evolutionary transformation. Contemporary evolutionary biology witnesses a renaissance of essentialism in three contexts: "origin essentialism" with respect to species and supraspecific taxa, the bar coding of species on the basis of discontinuities of DNA variation between populations, and the search for laws of evolutionary developmental biology. Such "new essentialism" in contemporary biology must be of a new kind that accommodates relational (extrinsic) properties as historical essences and cluster concepts of natural kinds.

引用

页码：662 / 673

页数：12