title: On closing the gap between philosophical concepts and their usage in scientific practice: A lesson from the debate about natural selection as mechanism.
abstract: In addition to theorizing about the role and value of mechanisms in scientific explanation or the causal structure of the world, there is a fundamental task of getting straight what a 'mechanism' is in the first place. Broadly, this paper is about the challenge of application: the challenge of aligning one's philosophical account of a scientific concept with the manner in which that concept is actually used in scientific practice. This paper considers a case study of the challenge of application as it pertains to the concept of a mechanism: the debate about whether natural selection is a mechanism. By making clear what is and is not at stake in this debate, this paper considers various strategies for dealing with the challenge of application and makes a case for definitional pluralism about mechanism concepts.
authors.affiliation: University of Utah, Department of Philosophy, Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building, 215 S. Central Campus Drive 4th Floor, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Electronic address: lucas.matthews@utah.edu.
authors.forename: Lucas J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Matthews
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010684:Philosophy; D012586:Science; D012641:Selection, Genetic / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Causality; Explanation; Mechanism; Mechanistic explanation; Methodology; Natural selection