Contingency Across the Life Sciences

Alison K. McConwell is assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is the author of Biological Individuality. Roberta L. Millstein is professor emerita in the Philosophy Department at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of The Land Is Our Community: Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethic for the New Millennium, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Michael R. Dietrich is professor in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh. Among his books, he is coeditor of Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds, also published by the University of Chicago Press. John Beatty is professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. He is coauthor of The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life.

• Chapter 1. That’s Life! On Historical ContingencyAlison K. McConwell, Roberta L. Millstein, Michael R. Dietrich, and John BeattyPart I. Historical Contingency: A Deeper DiveChapter 2. A Plurality of Contingencies: A Reference GuideRoberta L. MillsteinChapter 3. Contingency in the Historical Sciences: Gould’s Middle Way Between the Particular and the GeneralAlison K. McConwellChapter 4. What Does It Mean to Say That “History Matters,” Causally Speaking?Eric Desjardins and John BeattyChapter 5. Nonlinear Contingency: Ants, Fungi, and FeedbackEric AndersonChapter 6. Spaces of Possibility and the Contingency of Evolutionary NoveltyDouglas H. ErwinPart II. Historical Contingency: Evolutionary Biology and BeyondChapter 7. Primate Water Crossings and Historical Contingency: Natural Dispersals, Watercraft Voyages, and the Importance of PlaceAlan de QueirozChapter 8. Ecologists Have Been Debating the Role of Historical Contingency in Their Science for a CenturySharon E. KingslandChapter 9. Testing Contingency: The Origins and Early History of the Long-Term Evolution ExperimentMichael TravisanoChapter 10. Exploring the Alternatives: The Value of Journeys Down Evolutionary Paths Not TakenZachary D. BlountChapter 11. Parallels Between Ecological and Evolutionary Accounts of Historical ContingencyZachary D. Blount, Reena Debray, Eric Desjardins, Michael Travisano, and John BeattyChapter 12. Replaying Life’s Developmental TapeFrancesca Merlin and Marco CasaliPart III. Historical Contingency: What It Means to Be HumanChapter 13. “The Saddest Doctrine of All”: The Evolution of Ethics and the Case of Darwin’s BeesPiers J. HaleChapter 14. Contingency and the Darwinian RevolutionJohn BeattyChapter 15. Is Historical Contingency the Key to Moral Freedom?Myrna PerezChapter 16. That’s (Human) Life: How Evolutionary Accidents Can Be Normatively ConsequentialDerek D. TurnerEpilogue. Contingency and Determinism, Ecology and Evolution (or Forty Years of Replaying the Tape)Jonathan B. LososAcknowledgmentsList of ContributorsIndex

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