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The Insights and Oversights of Molecular Genetics: The Place of the Evolutionary Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

John Beatty
John Beatty*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
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Extract

Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. (Dobzhansky 1973)

Along with the notion that DNA is at the bottom of things biological, goes the notion that molecular genetics is on top. That is, along with the notion that DNA is the informational basis of life, goes the notion that the deepest explanations in biology are molecular-genetic. But even if the former notion is correct, the latter is not. More specifically; the molecular-genetic perspective alone is inappropriate for explaining those biological generalities that call out instead for an evolutionary account. Moreover, the molecular-genetic accounts that are brought to bear upon biological generalities are often themselves subject to evolutionary scrutiny in the final analysis. I cannot entirely rule out the possibility of an explanation of a biological generality that is, in the final analysis, molecular-genetic and nonevolutionary. I am, in this regard, in somewhat the position of the natural historian.

Type
Part VIII. Levels of Explanation in Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 341 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1982

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to Lindley Darden, Ernst Mayr, Nancy Maull, Alexander Rosenberg, Mary Williams, and especially Philip Kitcher for valuable help with earlier drafts of this paper.

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