History and philosophy of the life sciences
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In this paper I characterize science in terms of both invisible hand social organization and selection. These two processes are responsible for different features of science. Individuals working in isolation cannot produce much in the way of the warranted knowledge. ⋯ Treating science as a selection process casts it in a very different light. In this paper I combine an invisible hand mechanism with a selective perspective in order to explain why science is as successful as it is. I do not make recourse to evolutionary epistemology in any of its traditional senses.