Paleontology: A Philosophical Introduction

by Derek Turner

• ISBN13: 9780521133326
• ISBN10: 0521133327
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In the wake of the paleobiological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, paleontologists continue to investigate far-reaching questions about how evolution works. Many of those questions have a philosophical dimension. How is macroevolution related to evolutionary changes within populations? Is evolutionary history contingent? How much can we know about the causes of evolutionary trends? How do paleontologists read the patterns in the fossil record to learn about the underlying evolutionary processes? Derek Turner explores these and other questions, introducing the reader to exciting recent work in the philosophy of paleontology and to theoretical issues including punctuated equilibria and species selection. He also critically examines some of the major accomplishments and arguments of paleontologists of the last 40 years.

Author Biography

Derek Turner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College. His previous publications include Making Prehistory: Historical Science and the Scientific Realism Debate (Cambridge, 2007), as well as a number of articles on the philosophy of paleontology.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. viii
Acknowledgments	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
A new way of seeing the fossil record	p. 16
Punctuated equilibrium	p. 37
Species and macroevolution	p. 58
The case for species selection	p. 77
Real trends, relative progress	p. 99
Dynamics of evolutionary trends	p. 129
Evolutionary contingency	p. 156
Diversity, disparity, and the Burgess Shale	p. 180
Molecular fossils	p. 197
Bibliography	p. 209
Index	p. 222
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