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    Wakefield's connection of disease to an evolutionary conc... — Carmelics
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    Wakefield's connection of disease to an evolutionary concept of function is doubtful as a basis for medical science or common sense about disease

    BioethicsCausation
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Boorse's biostatistical theory defines disease via species-typical functioning without invoking natural selection, providing a viable non-evolutionary alternative.
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    • 2.Biomedical practice routinely classifies iatrogenic conditions and novel pathogens as diseases, yet these lack evolutionary histories of selection against them.
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    • 3.If evolutionary function were necessary for disease, then conditions arising post-industrially—like repetitive strain injury—would be categorically excluded, contra clinical consensus.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Neander and Millikan's teleosemantic work shows evolutionary functions face the 'swampman' problem: functional identity cannot depend on causal history alone.
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    • 2.Wakefield's hybrid account inherits indeterminacy from cladistic disputes about which ancestral population fixes the relevant selective environment for a trait.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Wakefield ties disease conceptually to naturally selected capacity
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    • 2.Most theorists in biomedical contexts agree that organ function can be understood without treating it as an adaptation
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    • 3.The connection between disease and evolutionary function cannot be found in either science or common sense about disease
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    BioethicsCausation

    Related

    Biomedical practice routinely classifies iatrogenic conditions and novel pathoge...Boorse's biostatistical theory defines disease via species-typical functioning w...If evolutionary function were necessary for disease, then conditions arising pos...Most theorists in biomedical contexts agree that organ function can be understoo...
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    Neander and Millikan's teleosemantic work shows evolutionary functions face the ...The connection between disease and evolutionary function cannot be found in eith...Wakefield ties disease conceptually to naturally selected capacityWakefield's hybrid account inherits indeterminacy from cladistic disputes about ...

    Similar

    The connection between disease and evolutionary function cannot be fou...94%Wakefield's evolutionary dysfunction account of disease is too restric...85%Structures with no evolved function cannot be diseased in Wakefield's ...85%Objections to an evolutionary notion of medical malfunction do not sho...84%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: health-disease
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    In effect, Schaffner is arguing that the biomedical sciences employ a causal, rather than a teleological, concept of function. This is in the spirit of Cummins’s (1975) systemic analysis of function as the causal contribution a structure makes to the overall operation of the system that includes it. Cummins’s concept of function is not a historical or evolutionary concept. According to Cummins, a component of a system may have a function even it was not designed or selected for. Wakefield has ti
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit