Darwinian populations and natural selection

About This Book

In 1859 Charles Darwin described a deceptively simple mechanism that he called 'natural selection', a combination of variation, inheritance, and reproductive success. He argued that this mechanism was the key to explaining the most puzzling features of the natural world, and science and philosophy were changed forever as a result. The exact nature of the Darwinian process has been controversial ever since, however. The author draws on new developments in biology, philosophy of science, and other fields to give a new analysis and extension of Darwin's idea.