The Representing Evolution project lies at the intersection of philosophy of science and evolutionary theory. The starting point is the widely accepted idea that scientific enquiry involves constructing representations of objects and processes in the world. Representations can take many forms, including diagrams, taxonomies, verbal descriptions and abstract models. The aim of the project is to examine how biological evolution has been represented – diagrammatically, verbally and mathematically – in the scientific literature, past and present, and in textbooks and works of popular science. “Biological evolution” includes the process of descent with modification that Darwin described; the mechanisms that drive the process such as natural selection; and the products to which the process gives rise such as adaptation and diversity. Scientists have constructed representations of each of these in their quest to understand evolution. The project offers a systematic analysis of these representations.
The overall objective is to address a series of difficult philosophical questions. These include: do representations of evolution owe more to the biological reality being represented or to the human mind doing the representing? How if at all can we distinguish between representations that are valid and ones that are flawed? Are representations of evolution necessarily partial and /or incomplete? What is the relation between diagrammatic and linguistic representations of evolution on the one hand and mathematical models on the other? Like most philosophical questions, these questions may not admit of final answers, but grappling with them can deepen our understanding.
The importance of the project lies in its scope and integrative ambition. The project draws on philosophical ideas about representation and idealization, linguistic ideas about metaphor and analogy, psychological ideas about reasoning and cognitive biases, and educational ideas about science communication. By combining ideas from these diverse sources, the project aims to break new intellectual ground and to deepen our understanding of the study of evolution.
The project’s societal importance lies in the fact that biological evolution is a much misunderstood idea. Erroneous conceptions abound, even among educated people. In part, this may reflect the fact that humans are hampered by certain cognitive biases, such as a tendency to see the world in teleological and essentialist terms, which must be overcome in order to properly grasp evolutionary ideas. By studying how these biases interact with constructed representations, the project has the potential to ameliorate public understanding of science.
