“Abrams’ book contributes a wealth of interesting ideas to the philosophical analysis of microevolution.”

Evolution

“For almost twenty years, Abrams has been, through a long series of papers, one of the primary contributors to a flourishing debate on explanation, causation, chance, and probability in natural selection. He has argued that a causal understanding of evolutionary explanations can be grounded in facts about populations and individual organisms, despite the statistical character of such explanations (which has pushed some to argue for a contrary, eliminativist position about the causal efficacy of evolutionary factors like natural selection and genetic drift). . . . What makes his stance both unique and compelling is that he has long claimed that it is the interpretation of probability that allows us to construct such an approach. . . . We now have here the complete story, in a well-written, clean volume of some 225 pages, loaded with biological examples and references to competing positions in the philosophical literature.”

British Society for the Philosophy of Science

“This book will interest readers looking for the most recent discussions and finer points of current thinking about evolution. Those with a technical background in the mathematics of probability and statistics will find parts of this book especially informative, but those preferring to skip the technicalities will discover plenty that illuminates the ‘machinery of change’ behind evolution without the mathematics. . . . Highly recommended.”

Choice

“Abrams’s exciting new book aims to correct fundamental mistakes that have bedeviled philosophical thinking about evolutionary fitness and natural selection for forty-some years. Using information about the empirical procedures that scientists deploy and focusing on population-environment systems rather than on single organisms, he throws new light on natural selection as a probabilistic and causal influence on evolution.”

Elliott Sober, author of The Design Argument

“Abrams gives an illuminating discussion of fundamental concepts in evolutionary studies from the sometimes opposing views of the philosophy of biology and evolutionary biology. He treats the foundational ideas of probability, fitness, and population with a clearly personal view but with clarity and a command of the literature in both philosophy and biology. I found his introduction of population-environment systems to be both provocative and compelling. The book will have a permanent place on my shelves.”

Bruce Weir, author of Genetic Data Analysis

“A must-read for philosophers of biology who want to continue to participate in debates about the nature of fitness and probability in evolutionary theory. Abrams has accomplished what he set out to do: elaborate and defend a particular way of understanding fitness and probability that illuminates the causal role of natural selection and fitness in evolutionary theory.”

Christopher Stephens, coeditor of Philosophy of Biology

“Marshall Abrams’s erudite analysis of fitness is motivated by his view that philosophy of science enhances understanding by tackling issues that working evolutionary biologists can avoid. Practitioners can avoid the issues because they study specific outcomes that take place among many other possibilities. Abrams generalizes this idea into what he calls population-environment systems based on complex interacting components that can yield various possible outcomes depending on chance. Yet he is sympathetic with everyday researchers who must use imprecise and flexible language to describe things with still inchoate understanding—as evidenced by Barbara McClintock’s once telling me that she knew how transposable elements worked long before she could put it into words.”

Daniel L. Hartl, coauthor of How Life Works