Darwinism - The Divide Between Disciplines.

Inhabitants of Shepherd's Bush have become aware that there is a scrap going on between philosophers at present over the validity of the theory of Darwinian Evolution. A book has been published by two well thought of Philosophers but they have based their ideas on the concept of  phenotype rather than genotype. Biologists today would never use the idea of phenotype but only genotype so that they can look at evolution in terms of the underlying genes rather than the final manifestation of those genes which is the phenotype.  This has led to a misunderstanding. See:http://bostonreview.net/BR35.2/darwin_exchange.php

See comment 27 in the discussion which is as follows:


Free riding is not a counter example of natural selection as stated by Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini. The confusion may be caused because they have developed their arguments based upon the phenotype rather than the underlying genotype.


If gene A is linked to gene B and gene B is selected for under certain conditions, then gene A survives too. Therefore Gene A is adapted to survival through its link to gene B. Free loading can be an adaptation too.


It must be remembered that many genes are not manifested in the phenotype, perhaps they are recessive or do not code, but the dynamics of natural selection still acts upon them and we can see how it is resolved in the example above. 

I do not believe that those biologists promoting Darwinism today would do so using the phenotype, they would use the genotype.

It seems that to be learned in more than one discipline today is a very difficult feat, no wonder most inhabitants of Shepherd's Bush keep well clear of these arguments.