ABSTRACT
This book is about Darwin’s theory of natural selection: what the theory says, what it is aimed at explaining, and how it manages to explain.* The problem faced in writing it is that it can seem as though there was no need to write it: Darwin’s theory has a familiarity that means that everyone believes that they already understand it perfectly. Darwin’s theory has the ring of the obviousness about it, even if that became apparent only with hindsight. There are many who agree with Jacques Monod’s quip that the curious thing about evolutionary theory is that everyone does think they understand it perfectly (Monod, 1974). The fact that there are so many divergent views about the theory means that not everyone who thinks they understand the theory perfectly can be right. As David Hull (1995) put it, “Evolutionary theory seems so easy almost anyone can misunderstand it.” Hull’s note of caution seems right, and this is even in a context in which evolutionary theory is so familiar that grade school children are introduced to it and the theory is rapidly being deployed to explain many and diverse aspects of the world. Why be cautious? The reason is there are serious questions about the theory and its deployment that we need to get clear about. The theory aims to give us historical-causal explanations. It is aimed as explaining not just how things are but why they are that way. This is part
of its theoretical appeal. Hence, how does the theory manage to explain, and what do we need to know before we can use it to explain?
