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May 1998

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Subject:
From:
Chris Young <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Date:
Thu, 28 May 1998 16:53:23 -0700
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Two Messages
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Subject:    Proposed dates for 1999 meetings in Oaxaca
Date:         Thursday, 28 May 1998
From:       "peter j. taylor" <[log in to unmask]>

The local arrangements committee strongly recommend that ISHPSSB have
the
1999 meeting starting Tuesday July 20 for registration, and sessions
July
21 and 22, then on Friday 23 the Monte Alban "excursion",  and again
sessions on Saturday and half-Sunday.
If you know of a clash with another conference please let Dick Burian
([log in to unmask]), me ([log in to unmask]) or Ana Barahona
([log in to unmask]) know as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Peter
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Subject:        New Book
Date:        Thu, 21 May 1998 15:47:07 -0400
From:      Valerie Hardcastle <[log in to unmask]>

Nature's Purposes:  Analyses of Function and Design in Biology
edited by Colin Allen, Marc Bekoff, and George Lauder

Within the natural sciences, only biologists take seriously teleological
statements about design, purpose, and adaptive function. Some biologists
claim that to understand the complex morphological and behavioral traits
of
organisms we must say what they are for, which is to give a teleological
explanation of why organisms have them. Others argue that the theory of
natural selection, in providing statistical explanations for the same
phenomena, obviates any need for teleological thinking. If teleology
cannot
be eliminated from biology, it raises fundamental questions about the
nature of biological explanation and about the relationship of biology
to the
rest of science.

To account for "Nature's purposes" is arguably the most important basic
issue in the philosophy of biology. This volume provides a guide to the
discussion among biologists and philosophers about the role of concepts
such as function and design in an evolutionary understanding of life.
All of
the contributors examine biological teleology from a naturalistic
perspective. Most of them maintain that teleological claims in biology
both
describe and explain something--but opinions vary as to exactly what is
explained and how.

Colin Allen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas A & M
University.
Marc Bekoff is Professor in the Department of Environmental, Population,
and Organismic Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. George
Lauder is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the
University of
California, Irvine.

Contributors
Fred Adams, Colin Allen, Ron Amundson, Francisco J. Ayala, Mark Bedau,
Marc
Bekoff, John Bigelow, Walter J. Bock, Robert N. Brandon, Robert Cummins,
Berent En=E7, Carl Gans, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Stephen Jay Gould, Paul E.
Griffiths, R. A. Hinde, Philip Kitcher, George V. Lauder, Ruth Garrett
Millikan, S. D. Mitchell, Ernest Nagel, Karen Neander, Robert Pargetter,
M.
J. S. Rudwick, Gerd von Wahlert, Elisabeth S. Vrba, Larry Wright.

A Bradford Book
April 1998
6 x 9, 608 pp., 3 illus.
$30.00 paper
ISBN 0-262-51097-9
$55.00S cloth
ISBN 0-262-01168-9

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Christian C. Young
Assistant Professor
Department of History, Science, and Culture
Mt. Angel Seminary, St. Benedict, Oregon   97373
Summer phone:  (503) 245-6913 (H)
[log in to unmask]

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