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Series:   Elements in the Philosophy of Biology

Comparative Thinking in Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2021

Adrian Currie
Adrian Currie
Affiliation:
University of Exeter

Summary

Biologists often study living systems in light of their having evolved, of their being the products of various processes of heredity, adaptation, ancestry, and so on. In their investigations, then, biologists think comparatively: they situate lineages into models of those evolutionary processes, comparing their targets with ancestral relatives and with analogous evolutionary outcomes. This element characterizes this mode of investigation - 'comparative thinking' - and puts it to work in understanding why biological science takes the shape it does. Importantly, comparative thinking is local: what we can do with knowledge of a lineage is limited by the evolutionary processes into which it fits. In light of this analysis, the Element examines the experimental study of animal cognition, and macroevolutionary investigation of the 'shape of life', demonstrating the importance of comparative thinking in understanding both the power and limitations of biological knowledge.
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Keywords

comparative methodhomologyMorgan’s canoncontingencyconvergence
Type
Element
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Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Biology
Online ISBN: 9781108616683
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 18 February 2021

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