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Papers by Jonathan Kaplan

Establishing Medical Reality

... 202 JONATHAN KAPLAN ... Attempts to understand and control violent and/or criminal behavior t... more ... 202 JONATHAN KAPLAN ... Attempts to understand and control violent and/or criminal behavior through biological approaches have a long history (Gould, 1981; Kevles, 1985; Hacking, 2001); however, despite some of the bold claims by early proponents of the biolog-icalization ...

Synthese

This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Philosophy of Epidemiology. The ov... more This article is an introduction to the Synthese Special Issue, Philosophy of Epidemiology. The overall goals of the issue are to revisit the state of philosophy of epidemiology and to provide a forum for new voices, approaches, and perspectives in the philosophy of epidemiology literature. The introduction begins by drawing on Geoffrey Rose's work on how to conceptualize and design interventions for populations, rather than individuals. It then goes on to highlight some themes that emerged in the articles that make up the issue: (1) philosophy of epidemiology and epidemiological theory-what they are and what they ought to be, (2) pluralism in measurement and causal attribution, (3) epistemic and non-epistemic values in disputes epidemiological practices, (4) decentering philosophy of epidemiology's Eurocentrism, (5) letting pragmatism guide uses of big data in epidemiology, and (6) revisiting the lessons of classic texts in epidemiological causal inference. The introduction concludes with comments on a philosophy of epidemiology debate we see on, regarding the politics of philosophy of epidemiology.

![Research paper thumbnail of Genes `for’ Phenotypes: A Modern History View](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/71919015/thumbnails/1.jpg)

Biology & Philosophy

We attempt to improve the understanding of the notion of a gene being 'for' a phenotypic trait or... more We attempt to improve the understanding of the notion of a gene being 'for' a phenotypic trait or traits. Considering the implicit functional ascription of one thing being 'for' another, we submit a more restrictive version of 'gene for' talk. Accordingly, genes are only to be thought of as being for phenotypic traits when good evidence is available that the presence or prevalence of the gene in a population is the result of natural selection on that particular trait, and that the association between that trait and the gene in question is demonstrably causal. It is therefore necessary to gather statistical, biochemical, historical, as well as ecological information before properly claiming that a gene is for a phenotypic trait. Instead of hampering practical use of the 'gene for' talk, our approach aims at stimulating much needed research into the functional ecology and comparative evolutionary biology of gene action.

Philosophy in Review, 2005

Philosophy of Science, 2009

Recently, a paper by Estes and Arnold claimed to have "solved" the paradox of evolutionary stasis... more Recently, a paper by Estes and Arnold claimed to have "solved" the paradox of evolutionary stasis; they claim that stabilizing selection, and only stabilizing selection, can explain the patterns of evolutionary divergence observed over "all timescales". While Estes and Arnold clearly think of their work as identifying the processes that produce evolutionary stasis, close attention to their claims reveal that they do no such thing. Instead, Estes and Arnold identify a particular evolutionary pattern-stabilizing selection as a statistical descriptor-but fail to identify the processes that produce that pattern. This mistake is important; the slippage between pattern and process is common in population and quantitative genetics, and contributes to a persistent misunderstanding of the nature of explanations in evolutionary biology.

Studies in history and philosophy of biological and biomedical sciences, Jan 6, 2015

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century p... more Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton's conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton's findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould's analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.'s thesis that Morton was "right." We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton's analysis as inappropriate and misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the "populations" in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton's conf...

Ethics, the Law, and Public Health, 2012

Philosophy of Science, 2014

This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and... more This paper distinguishes three concepts of "race": bio-genomic cluster/race, biological race, and social race. We map out realism, antirealism, and conventionalism about each of these, in three important historical episodes: Frank Livingstone and Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1962, A. W. F. Edwards's 2003 response to Lewontin's 1972 paper, and contemporary discourse. Semantics is especially crucial to the first episode, while normativity is central to the second. Upon inspection, each episode also reveals a variety of commitments to the metaphysics of race. We conclude by interrogating the relevance of these scientific discussions for political positions and a post-racial future. There are no races, there are only clines. (Livingstone 1962, 279) If races did not exist they would have to be invented. (Dobzhansky 1968, 78) Human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. (Lewontin 1972, 397) But it is a dangerous mistake to premise the moral equality of human beings on biological similarity because dissimilarity, once revealed, then becomes an argument for moral inequality.

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2001

... Jonathan Michael Kaplan. ... France; GB, the United Kingdom; GR, Greece; HR, Croatia; HU, Hun... more ... Jonathan Michael Kaplan. ... France; GB, the United Kingdom; GR, Greece; HR, Croatia; HU, Hungary; IE, Ireland; IT, Italy; KS, Kosovo; LV, Latvia; MK, Macedonia; NO, Norway; NL, The Netherlands; PL, Poland; PT, Portugal; RO, Romania; RS, Serbia and Montenegro; RU, Russia ...

Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2000

The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2008

1 Asymmetries Several of the natural sciences geology, paleontology, evolutionary bio-logy, cos... more 1 Asymmetries Several of the natural sciences geology, paleontology, evolutionary bio-logy, cosmology, and archaeology purport to give us knowledge of pre-history. By prehistory I just mean everything that happened before the invention of writing made it ...

Philosophy of Science, 2003

Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying... more Biological research on race has often been seen as motivated by or lending credence to underlying racist attitudes; in part for this reason, recently philosophers and biologists have gone through great pains to essentially deny the existence of biological human races. We argue that human races, in the biological sense of local populations adapted to particular environments, do in fact exist; such races are best understood through the common ecological concept of ecotypes. However, human ecotypic races do not in general correspond with 'folk' racial categories, largely because many similar ecotypes have multiple independent origins. Consequently, while human natural races exist, they have little or nothing in common with 'folk' races.

Metascience, 2006

In Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?, Vandermassen argues for two related theses. The first is that... more In Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?, Vandermassen argues for two related theses. The first is that it is impossible to formulate or defend a coherent feminist position without assuming something about 'human nature'. The second is that contemporary 'evolutionary psychology' provides the best 'scientific' approach to human nature currently available. She concludes that understanding and using the insights of evolutionary psychology will be vital to feminists. The first of these claims is reasonable, but the suggestion that feminist authors have widely ignored it is not. The second claim is much more problematic-one can be sympathetic to evolutionary theory more generally, and to the claim that human psychological abilities are the product of adaptive evolution, without finding much in contemporary evolutionary psychology to get excited about. Finally, even if one were sympathetic to contemporary evolutionary psychology, it is not at all clear that the 'insights' Vandermassen finds in it will be particularly useful for informing the social and political goals of feminism. Vandermassen's criticisms of 'feminist' arguments against research into gender differences tend towards the grossly unfair. To claim that Helen Longino wants 'to subordinate science to [her] political ends' (p. 53) is simply false. Longino does claim that when there is insufficient 'ordinary' empirical evidence to decide between competing hypotheses, we are likely unable to prevent our political values from guiding our (tentative) choice, and indeed, may be justified in doing so (Science as Social Knowledge, 1990). This position

Biology & Philosophy, 2013

ABSTRACT Matthen (Philos Sci 76(4):464–487, 2009) argues that explanations of evolutionary change... more ABSTRACT Matthen (Philos Sci 76(4):464–487, 2009) argues that explanations of evolutionary change that appeal to natural selection are statistically abstractive explanations, explanations that ignore some possible explanatory partitions that in fact impact the outcome. This recognition highlights a difficulty with making selective analyses fully rigorous. Natural selection is not about the details of what happens to any particular organism, nor, by extension, to the details of what happens in any particular population. Since selective accounts focus on tendencies, those factors that impact the actual outcomes but do not impact the tendencies must be excluded. So, in order to properly exclude the factors irrelevant to selection, the relevant factors must be identified, and physical processes, environments, and populations individuated on the basis of being relevantly similar for the purposes of selective accounts. Natural selection, on this view, becomes in part a measure of the robustness of particular kinds of outcomes given variations over some kinds of inputs.

Biology & Philosophy, 2008

ABSTRACT The concepts of adaptive/fitness landscapes and adaptive peaks are a central part of muc... more ABSTRACT The concepts of adaptive/fitness landscapes and adaptive peaks are a central part of much of contemporary evolutionary biology; the concepts are introduced in introductory texts, developed in more detail in graduate-level treatments, and are used extensively in papers published in the major journals in the field. The appeal of visualizing the process of evolution in terms of the movement of populations on such landscapes is very strong; as one becomes familiar with the metaphor, one often develops the feeling that it is possible to gain deep insights into evolution by thinking about the movement of populations on landscapes consisting of adaptive valleys and peaks. But, since Wright first introduced the metaphor in 1932, the metaphor has been the subject of persistent confusion, from equivocation over just what the features of the landscape are meant to represent to how we ought to expect the landscapes to look. Recent advances—conceptual, empirical, and computational—have pointed towards the inadequacy and indeed incoherence of the landscapes as usually pictured. I argue that attempts to reform the metaphor are misguided; it is time to give up the pictorial metaphor of the landscape entirely and rely instead on the results of formal modeling, however difficult such results are to understand in ‘intuitive’ terms.

Biology & Philosophy, 2014

Some authors defending the ''hereditarian'' hypothesis with respect to differences in average IQ ... more Some authors defending the ''hereditarian'' hypothesis with respect to differences in average IQ scores between populations have argued that the sorts of environmental variation hypothesized by some researchers rejecting the hereditarian position should leave discoverable statistical traces, namely changes in the overall variance of scores or in variance-covariance matrices relating scores to other variables. In this paper, I argue that the claims regarding the discoverability of such statistical signals are broadly mistaken-there is no good reason to suspect that the hypothesized environmental causes would leave detectable traces of the sorts suggested. As there remains no way to gather evidence that would permit the direct refutation of the environmental hypotheses, and no direct evidence for the hereditarian position, it remains the case, I argue, that the hereditarian position is unsupported by current evidence.

Page 1. Making Sense of Evolution The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology MASSIMO PIGL... more Page 1. Making Sense of Evolution The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology MASSIMO PIGLJL'CCI AND JONATHAN KAPLAN Page 2. Making Sense of Evolution Page 3. Page 4. Making Sense of Evolution The Conceptual ...