Currie A. Comparative Thinking in Biology

Cambridge University Press, 2021. — 84 p.Biologists often study living systems in light of their having evolved, of their being the products of various processes of heredity, adaptation, ancestry, and so on. In their investigations, then, biologists think comparatively: they situate lineages into models of those evolutionary processes, comparing their targets with ancestral relatives and with analogous evolutionary outcomes. This element characterizes this mode of investigation - 'comparative thinking' - and puts it to work in understanding why biological science takes the shape it does. Importantly, comparative thinking is local: what we can do with knowledge of a lineage is limited by the evolutionary processes into which it fits. In light of this analysis, the Element examines the experimental study of animal cognition, and macroevolutionary investigation of the 'shape of life', demonstrating the importance of comparative thinking in understanding both the power and limitations of biological knowledge.Cats versus Dogs
Comparative Thinking
Comparative Concepts
Two Kinds of Inference
Adaptationism and Integration
Locality
Styles of thinking
Biological Significance
Comparative Cognition
Morgan’s Canon
The Comparative Canon
Pursuit in Comparative Psychology
The Shape of Life
Morphospace and Contingency
Convergence and Singletons
Challenging General Contingency Theses
Conclusion
Bibliography
Acknowledgements