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The First Workshop of the Paris-Pittsburgh Workshop Series
Adaptations in Psychology and in Biology Preliminary Program

4-5 June 2008
Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST)
13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris (2 nd floor) map

While early debates about adaptations were dominated by Gould and Lewontin’s critique of pan-adaptationism, the terms of the debate have changed. Current debates about adaptations in biology and in psychology are motivated by new developments in science: in biology, optimality models are increasingly sophisticated and are applied not only in behavioral ecology but in new fields such as morphology and microbiology; in psychology, evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology explicitly aim at applying a selectionist perspective on human cognitive dispositions and on human behaviors. The workshop will focus on the issues about adaptations and adaptationism raised by these new scientific developments.

9:45

10:00

11:00

  11:15

  12:15

  13:00

  14:15

  15:00

  16:00

16:15

17:00

Introduction

François Taddei (Molecular, Evolutionary, and Medical Genetics, Necker / Inserm, Paris), Adapting the Genome to the Environment or Adapting the Environment to the Genome

Coffee Break

Stephen Stearns (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale), On Life History Theory and Adaptationism paper1 paper2

Tim Lewens (History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge), Adaptationism and Evo-Devo

Lunch

Hugo Viciana (IHPST), Cognitive Convergence Thesis Confronts the Idea of Co-Cursors

Edouard Machery (HPS, Pittsburgh), Three Neuroscientific Arguments against the Massive Modularity Hypothesis

Break

Peter Gildenhuys (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptationist Reasoning and Applied Population Genetics paper

Jean-Louis Dessalles (Department Informatique & Réseaux, ENST, Paris), Language as an Adaptation

Thursday, 5 June 2008

9:30

10:15

11:15

11:30

12:15

  13:45

  14:30

  15:30

15:45

16:45

Thomas Cunningham (HPS, Pittsburgh), Natural Selection, Adaptation, and Fitness: On the Illusion of Perspectively Neutral Explanatory Roles

Sandra Mitchell (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptation and Complexity in Biological Systems

Coffee Break

Jason Byron (HPS, Pittsburgh), Adaptation and Species Selection

Lunch

Arnaud Pocheville (Paris V, FiV), Adaptation, Niche Construction and Extended Phenotypes

William Wimsatt (Philosophy, Chicago), Optimization vs. Satisficing

Coffee Break

Philippe Huneman (IHPST, Paris), Adaptation and Multi-Level Selection - the Case of Evolutionary Transitions presentation

Yoichi Ishida, (HPS, Pittsburgh), The Optimality Argument for the 3/4-Power Scaling Law in Ecology

Organizers

Edouard Machery (machery@pitt.edu)
Philippe Huneman (huneman@wanadoo.fr)

Sponsors

Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Technique