SCIENTIFIC STATUS OF NATURAL SELECTION AS AN EXPLANATION OF EVOLUTION

This work is aimed at showing that although natural selection does not satisfy the strict criteria for scientific explanations according to the so-called covering law theory, it meets some broader criteria for scientific explanations latent in the history of the actual practice of both natural and social sciences explicitly propounded in the methodological pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce. To the extent that it meets such criteria, I argue that to the same extent, natural selection is a scientific theory. Scientific inquiry was carried on long before logical positivism was born. While we acknowledge positive contribution to the economy and logical vigour on the part of the covering-law model, the functional comprehensiveness of scientific inquiry latent (even if not explicitly stated) in Peircean pragmatism cannot be over-looked. The study explores the requirements of the covering-law theory which demands that, for any theory to qualify as scientific, it must invoke a “general law” in addition to its premises being known to be true. These two requirements natural selection fails to meet. Consequently, it fails to qualify as scientific according to this criterion.