What Sort of Science Is Evolutionary Biology?

Dialogue ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 129-142
Author(s):  
Mohan Matthen
Keyword(s):  
Population Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Epistemology ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Methodological Aspects

Paul Thompson's new book,The Structure of Biological Theories, is about the formalization of evolutionary biology. He is primarily concerned, he says, with the logical, epistemological, and methodological aspects of biological theorizing. The main theme of the book is the opposition between what Thompson calls the syntactic and the semantic conceptions of theories. He wishes to establish that the semantic account is superior to the syntactic in at least three areas: first, it offers a more faithful account of population biology; second, it facilitates a conception of evolutionary biology as a family of interacting theories; finally, it offers us a richer framework for the resolution of methodological problems that have plagued sociobiology and evolutionary epistemology.

Ecology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Beatty
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Related Question ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Ecological Hierarchy

Philosophers of science have paid relatively little attention to ecology (compared to other areas of biology like evolution and genetics), but ecology poses many interesting foundational and methodological problems. For example, the problems of clarifying the differences and causal connections between the various levels of the ecological hierarchy (organism, population, community, ecosystem…); the issue of how central evolutionary biology is to ecology; long-standing issues concerning the extent to which the domain of ecology is more law-governed or more a matter of historical contingency, and the related question of whether ecologists should rely more on laboratory/manipulative versus field/comparative methods of investigation.

scholarly journals METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES OF FORMATION OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES OF LOGISTIC ACTIVITIES MANAGEMENT IN AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataliia Makarenko
Keyword(s):  
Competitive Strategy ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Competitive Strategies ◽  
Agricultural Producers ◽  
Agricultural Enterprises ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
Methodological Aspects

Methodological principles that determine the quality parameters of strategic management and justify the application of new scientific approaches and methods in the formation of a competitive strategy for the management of logistics activities of enterprises play a decisive role in the formation of the methodology of strategic logistics management. Today there is no single approach to determining the methodology of formation and evaluation of the effectiveness of competitive strategies for managing the logistics activities of agricultural enterprises. The results of the analysis of scientific research confirm the need to substantiate the methodological aspects of the formation of competitive strategies for managing the logistics activities of agricultural producers. The purpose of the article is to study the methodological aspects in the formation of competitive strategies for managing the logistics activities of agricultural enterprises. Methodological aspects of formation of competitive strategies of management of logistic activity of agrarian enterprises are investigated. It is established that in modern conditions the role and significance of research of methodology of formation of competitive management strategies taking into account specificity of logistic activity of the enterprises of agrarian sphere is actualized. The problems of formation and evaluation of efficiency of competitive strategy of management of logistic activity of agrarian enterprises of both theoretical and practical character are defined, the decision of which will allow to carry out process of formation of qualitative competitive strategies for agricultural producers. Methodological principles have been formed that should be applied to any type of general competitive strategies and to the corporate or business strategy of agricultural enterprises in particular. This article examines the methodological aspects of the formation of competitive strategies for managing the logistics activities of agricultural enterprises. This is what allowed us to identify methodological problems related to the process of forming competitive strategies for managing the logistics activities of agricultural enterprises. Methodological principles of formation of competitive strategies of management of logistic activity of agrarian enterprises were divided into a set of general and separate methodological principles of formation of this type of strategies. The obtained results of the research contribute to the formation of competitive strategies for the management of logistics activities of agricultural enterprises and the improvement of the conceptual apparatus of the methodology of competitiveness of the agricultural sector.

Evolutionary biology and epistemology

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 11-19
Author(s):  
Aleksej Tarasjev
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary Epistemology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Biology ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Epistemological Basis

Foundation and further development of modern biology raised many epistemological questions and biology was often criticized on that ground. There has been attempts, especially after emergence of molecular biology, to reduce biology to physics and chemistry. Epistemological basis of modern biology were also under ideologically motivated attacks from various positions. On the other hand, there were also attempts to reduce psychology and social sciences to biology. Finally, there were attempts to biologize epistemology itself through so-called evolutionary epistemology. Concise presentation of all that aspects of relationship between epistemology and biology is given.

Some methodological aspects of personality education

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-54
Author(s):  
A. Iskakova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Educational Practice ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutics ◽  
Modern Education ◽  
New Learning ◽  
Education Today ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Methodological Aspects ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Missing Element

Theoretical and methodological problems of modern education and upbringing arouse deep interest and continue to remain highly relevant at the present time, when the issues of the content of education, the need to search for its qualitative originality and compliance with new learning technologies caused by the pandemic are of particular importance. This article identifies and expands the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and education, emphasizes that philosophical hermeneutics has everything necessary to determine the goal of education and forms the basis for formulating the main tasks that need to be solved at present time, it is noted in the paper the lack of attention to the research of philosophy of education as a vital missing element in the study and practice of modern education today. The author seeks to represent the humanistic character and philosophical status of knowledge that underlie historical educational practice.

The Social Turn in Moral Psychology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Fedyk
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Philosophical Ethics ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The Relationship

In this book, Mark Fedyk offers a novel analysis of the relationship between moral psychology and allied fields in the social sciences. Fedyk shows how the social sciences can be integrated with moral philosophy, argues for the benefits of such an integration, and offers a new ethical theory that can be used to bridge research between the two. Fedyk argues that moral psychology should take a social turn, investigating the psychological processes that motivate patterns of social behavior defined as ethical using normative information extracted from the social sciences. He points out methodological problems in conventional moral psychology, particularly the increasing methodological and conceptual inconsilience with both philosophical ethics and evolutionary biology. Fedyk's "causal theory of ethics" is designed to provide moral psychology with an ethical theory that can be used without creating tension between its scientific practice and the conceptual vocabulary of philosophical ethics. His account aims both to redirect moral psychology toward more socially realistic questions about human life and to introduce philosophers to a new form of ethical naturalism—a way of thinking about how to use different fields of scientific research to answer some of the traditional questions that are at the heart of ethics.

scholarly journals SOME CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES ON HAPPINESS: LESSONS FROM EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (04) ◽  
pp. 1540001 ◽  
Author(s):  
YEW-KWANG NG
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Fitness Maximization ◽  
Happiness Measurement

Despite recent intense interest, happiness studies have been impeded by some conceptual and methodological problems, including viewing happiness (well-being/welfare) as different over different persons, as relative, multi-dimensional, non-cardinally measurable, interpersonally non-comparable and using non-cardinal and interpersonally non-comparable methods of happiness measurement. Using the evolutionary biology of happiness, this paper argues that happiness is absolute, universal, and uni-dimensional and is also cardinally measurable and interpersonally comparable. This is needed to make choices motivated by reward (pleasure) and punishment (pain) consistent with fitness maximization. However, happiness indices obtained by virtually all existing methods of happiness measurement are largely non-cardinal and non-comparable, making the use of averaging in group happiness indices of dubious philosophical validity. A method of measuring happiness to give cardinal and interpersonally comparable indices is discussed. These may contribute towards the more scientific study of happiness that is based on sounder methodological grounds as well as yielding more useful results.

scholarly journals On some theoretical and methodological issues in researching the Roma population in sociology and ethnology/socio-cultural anthropology. The example of an ongoing research project in Serbia

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 879
Author(s):  
Miloš Milenković ◽  
Isidora Jarić ◽  
Valentina Sokolovska
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Roma Population ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Methodological Aspects

The paper considers theoretical and methodological problems noted during the research project “Social and cultural potentials of the Roma ethnic community in Serbia” undertaken during 2013 and 2014. These problems point to an extant yet latent tension between the anthropological and the sociological approaches to the researched reality, with special emphasis on the antirealist tradition of the former and the empiricist “realist” tradition of the latter in the Serbian academic tradition of these disciplines. The paper considers how standard issues connected to methodological aspects of this primarily sociological research project (choice of topic, creation of sample, the making of field instruments, selection of informants, communication in the field, use of field assistants, data analysis and the making of the manuscript) diffract through the prism of theoretically disputable concepts of identity, ethnicity, assimilation and essentialization, which are subject to continuing questioning in anthropological theoretical and empirical research. The experience of conducting research together displays a set of methodological defaults on the anthropological and a set of theoretical defaults on the sociological side, followed by research renunciations and interpretative tensions and frustrations that arise from them, so it can be used as a guide to understanding disciplinary differences and similarities, especially when planning cooperation on a global level as well as in the local research context. Aside from this, the indivisibility of theoretical and methodological structures and the huge influence of theory on method, as demonstrated by the research itself, is considered, with implications for understanding theoretical and methodological issues which are bigger than the two disciplines in question. It is concluded that, for pragmatic reasons, multidisciplinary research of this type must be designed to suppress the theoretical ambitions of anthropology as well as the methodological ambitions of sociology.

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