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The Theory of Evolution as Personal Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Edward Manier
Edward Manier*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Abstract

Dr. Marjorie Grene has argued that criteria taken from a personalist philosophy of science have regulative force in the dispute between orthogenetic and synthetic or neo-Darwinian theories of evolution, and that these criteria commend the acceptance of the orthogenetic position. Grene's position includes two basically correct theses concerning the limitations of operationism and reductionism. However, she fails to show that personalist tenets are necessary for the validation of these two theses. Moreover, the proposed modifications of evolutionary theory depend upon additional premisses: that biology must study individuals rather than populations, and that the synthetic theory must prove that natural selection and mutation are the only possible factors for control of the direction of evolutionary change. The evidence for these premisses is called into question.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , July 1965, pp. 244 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1965

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