Description

Discussions of evolutionary theory are saturated with references to 'chance'. ese

references appear in areas as diverse as macroevolution (Conway Morris, ; Desjardins,

), mutation (Stamos, ; Dietrich, ; Merlin, ), foraging theory (Glymour,

), and environmental variation (Lenormand et al., ). As philosophers of science,

how can we come to terms with this diversity of usage of what is widely recognized to be an

extremely dicult and thorny concept, rife with philosophical issues? We should begin by

surveying the landscape of contemporary work on chance within the philosophy of biology