PHIL 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Common Chimpanzee, The Churchills, Reductionism
Document Summary
Philosophy of biology, peter godfrey-smith, chapter 7 species and the tree of life. The typological view of species: types are based on characteristic ( internal") properties of the type: its essence. Darwin: species evolve from other species and have vague boundaries: they exhibit variations (from random mutations) that are selected for or against with a given environment. This gives rise to new definitions of species. Overall similarity, clusters" of similar features that exhibit variation and can shade into each other. Organisms that can breed with each other but not with organisms outside the collection. The cases of hamlet fish; and the ciclid" group of fish. Cohesion analysis: things living similar lives in similar environments. Species are the twigs on the tree of life. A set of ancestors and descendents, between points when the lineage breaks into two, a branching event. But what about bacteria every event of reproduction is a branching.
