Yes. As far as I know, there is not a live debate in philosophy of biology (or philosophy more generally) regarding the viability of neo-Darwinian theories of evolution. There are lots of interesting debates about the details of the theories (e.g., levels of selection, how to understand the mechanism of natural selection, etc.), but no respectable philosophers I know of defend Intelligent Design as an alternative biological theory to evolution by natural selection. There are debates about how to treat the debate itself (e.g., whether ID should be taught--I like to teach Darwin vs. ID in my intro to philosophy class to teach abduction or argument to the best explanation), and philosophers still teach the teleological argument or Design argument for the existence of God (the new versions of these arguments that invoke the probabilities regarding the laws and constants being 'ripe' for a stable, evolution-friendly universe are interesting to discuss). But philosophers often teach such arguments as...

Yes! But my answer is based on my metaphysics. I think that your brain is an essential part of you (along with your body) and that the part of you that consciously considers what to do and makes decisions is a part of your brain. So, you have control over your own brain because processes occurring in your brain control other processes in your brain that cause your bodily actions. Conscious self-control is a (very complex) set of brain processes. If this sounds counter-intuitive, it is partly because we simply have no good theory about how physical brain processes could be the basis of conscious experiences and thoughts (though we do have pretty good theories about how the brain carries out many cognitive tasks, such as perception, language, and initiation of movement). And it is partly because we have a competing metaphysical theory, largely based on religion, that says that our selves (our conscious minds) are non-physical entities separate from the brain and body (notice that this...

Suppose there are two mutations that would allow a species of plant to gather more sunlight for energy, one that would make it grow taller than competing plants and another than would make it grow wider. The species happens to evolve to grow taller. It is true that it might have achieved the adaptive function of gathering more energy without growing taller (i.e., by growing wider instead). So, growing taller was not necessary (i.e., the only way) to achieve this function. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to say that the plant's height is causally irrelevant to its capacities to gather energy from sunlight. Similarly, it might be that a species (call them p-zombies) might have evolved that could gather and synthesize information about various features of its environment just as well as us but without being phenomenally conscious. But the possibility of such a species tells us nothing about whether phenomenal consciousness in us (and other animals) plays a causal role in gathering and...

It doesn't. There are several possibilities here. One is that there is a causal relationship between the physical brain and a non-physical mind, which can still make sense of the idea that when alcohol is coursing through your veins into your brain it causes your conscious experiences to be funky or when a part of your brain is lesioned it causes mental disorders. This view is Descartes' dualism. If it is true, then presumably your non-physical mind (or soul) can survive after your physical body dies (though it's hard to imagine how things would be for your bodiless soul in "heaven"--e.g., how do you find grandma? and what would you do for fun?). This view becomes less plausible the stronger the correlations between brain states and mental states become (the soul seems to have nothing left to do). So, supposing such dualism is implausible and we assume this evidence of a causal relationship between brains and consciousness is evidence of a physicalist view, one that says the mind just ...

As you suggest, there are a lot of analogies between cars and living things, and if you had used computer programs, there might have been even more. So, if we wish to say that amoeba and such are alive, whereas human artifacts are not, we need to find the relevant differences . There are at least three salient ones that seem relevant to picking out what counts as living (and the proper subject of biology): 1. What they do: Self-replication. All living things can replicate themselves. No artifacts can. Of course, it gets tricky when you consider things like computer viruses. Or future robots that might build robots like them. People also talk about other functions such as metabolism and self-regulation, but they might offer even less clear boundaries between living and non-living. 2. Where they came from: Evolution from a common ancestor. That is, the current (well-supported) theory is that all living things share a common ancestor. No artifacts evolved from living things. ...