Artificial Selection as an Analogy for Natural Selection in Darwin's Views: An Analysis from a Cognitive Science Perspective

Subject Areas : Philosophy

Mahmoud Mozhdeh Khoshknodahani ¹

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Received: 2022-06-21 Accepted : 2022-09-07 Published : 2022-08-23

Keywords: analogy, Natural selection, artificial selection, Darwin, Model,

Abstract :

How to establish an analogy between the two types of natural and artificial selection has been studied and studied by many historians and philosophers of science, biology and evolution. One of the most important sources in this regard is Darwin's manuscripts, which show how, in the process of Darwin's research studies, an analogy between natural and artificial selection was formed in his mind. His approach to analogy is a naturalistic one. In the history of science and knowledge, there are many examples of analogies that have been used both as discoveries and as arguments. According to the new findings of the cognitive sciences, the human mind operates on the basis of analogical reasoning, so that a number of cognitive scientists believe that analogy is at the core of human cognition. Various models in the cognitive sciences have been proposed for analogy. Researches show that the analogical arguments used by Darwin based on cognitive science models, are proportional analogy, with the difference that he used a number of bridging and Contrastive analogies to establish the analogy between natural and artificial selection.