Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:02:48.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chance Variation: Darwin on Orchids

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

John Beatty
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How, according to Darwin, does chance variation affect evolutionary outcomes? In his 1866 book, On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, Darwin developed an argument that played an important role in his overall case for evolution by natural selection, as articulated in later editions of the Origin. This argument also figured significantly in Darwin's reflections on the theological dimensions of evolution by natural selection.

Type
Case Studies on Chance in Evolution
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 73 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2004 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Miriam Solomon , December 2006 , pp. 629 - 641
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks very much to Robert Richardson and Robert Skipper for organizing and contributing to this session. Thanks also to Michael Dietrich, James Lennox, Roberta Millstein, and the HPS-STS Collective at UBC for their thoughtful feedback. I was pleased to present a version of this paper in honor of Jim Lennox's long and productive directorship of the Center for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

References

Bell, Charles ([1833] 1855), The Hand: Its Mechanisms and Vital Endowments, as Evincing Design. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 1st ed. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1872), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 6th ed., rev. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles ([1877] 1892), On the Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects. 2nd ed., rev. (1st ed. 1862). New York: Appleton (also reprinted by University of Chicago Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1883), The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. 2 vols., 2nd ed., rev. (1st ed. 1868). New York: Appleton.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1993), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Vol. 8, Frederick Burkhardt et al. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1997), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Vol. 10, Frederick Burkhardt et al. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1999), The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Vol. 11, Frederick Burkhardt et al. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Desmond, Adrian, and Moore, James (1991), Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. New York: Warner.Google Scholar
Ghiselin, Michael T. (1969), The Triumph of the Darwinian Method. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, Gerd et al. (1989), The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Asa ([1860] 1963), “Natural Selection Not Inconsistent with Natural Theology,” in Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 72–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, James (1993), “Darwin was a Teleologist,” Biology and Philosophy 8:409–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lennox, James (2004), “Darwinism,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/darwinism/>.Google Scholar
Mani, G. S., and Clarke, B. C. (1990), “Mutational Order: A Major Stochastic Process in Evolution,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 240:29–37.Google Scholar
Muller, Hermann J. (1939), “Reversibility in Evolution Considered from the Standpoint of Genetics,” Biological Review 14:261–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, Hermann J. (1940), “Bearing of the Drosophila Work on Systematics,” in Huxley, Julian (ed.), The New Systematics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185–268.Google Scholar
Nilsson, L. Anders (1998), “Deep Flowers for Deep Tongues,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 13:259–260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Owen, Richard (1849), On the Nature of Limbs. London: Voorst.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruse, Michael (1979), The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar