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The Rise of Chance in Evolutionary Theory
A Pompous Parade of Arithmetic
Combines foundational research and statistical advances to examine the vital role of chance in evolutionary theory
Charles H. Pence (Author)
9780323912914, Elsevier Science
Paperback / softback, published 26 November 2021
190 pages
23.5 x 19 x 1.3 cm, 0.41 kg
"…Charles Pence’s excellent new book provides a rich and detailed history that carefully inspects the traditional account of biometrics, plotting the emergence of statistical thinking in evolutionary theory. The author argues that Darwin informally made room for chance by conceptualizing natural selection not as a law but as a tendency, but a tendency that constrained sources of chance that might otherwise affect evolutionary outcomes. For Pence there is a tension here, which prevented a full commitment to a probabilistic theory, due to the deterministic philosophies of science in which Darwin was schooled. Nonetheless, Darwin created" --The Quarterly Review of Biology
The Rise of Chance in Evolutionary Theory: A Pompous Parade of Arithmetic explores a pivotal conceptual moment in the history of evolutionary theory: the development of its extensive reliance on a wide array of concepts of chance. It tells the history of a methodological and conceptual development that reshaped our approach to natural selection over a century, ranging from Darwin’s earliest notebooks in the 1830s to the early years of the Modern Synthesis in the 1930s. Far from being a “pompous parade of arithmetic,? as one early critic argued, evolution transformed during this period to make these conceptual and technical tools indispensable. This book charts the role of chance in evolutionary theory from its beginnings to the earliest days of modern evolutionary theory, making it an ideal resource for evolutionary biologists, historians, philosophers, and researchers in science studies or biological statistics.
1. Chance governs the descent of a farthing: Charles Darwin 2. The wonderful form of cosmic order: Francis Galton 3. The only ultimate test of the theory of natural selection: The Early Years of Biometry 4. Here is the true gospel: Biometry After Mendelism 5. Reconciling the biometrical conclusions: Evolution from 1906 to 1918 6. What natural selection must be doing: R. A. Fisher’s Early Synthesis 7. Conclusions, historiographical and philosophical Index
Subject Areas: Developmental biology [PSC], Evolution [PSAJ]
