Editorial: Systematics, Darwinism, and the Philosophy of Science

Abstract

This special issue of Acta Biotheoretica grows out of a small conference on ''Systematics, Darwinism, and the Philosophy of Science'' held at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in the Fall of 2006. We asked the conference attendees and other experts to submit papers exploring issues emerging around contemporary biological systematics and Darwinism. Following common usage, we construe systematics as the research field engaged in classifying and naming organisms; we understand Darwinism (roughly: evolutionary biology), as the set of disciplines that provide historical, selective, and perhaps other types of explanations for the origin and nature of parts and characters (from genetic- molecular to behavioral-cognitive) of hierarchically arranged taxa. We are extremely grateful to the 12 authors, who exhibit a broad range of deep expertise and creativity, in both biological and philosophical matters. In order to publish this large number of contributions, we divide them into two groups: ''From a Philosophical Point of View'' and ''From a Biological Point of View.'' Each grouping includes a general