This paper evaluates and criticises the developmental systems conception of evolution and develops instead an extension of the "gene's eye" conception of evolution. We argue (i) Dawkins' attempt to segregate developmental and evolutionary issues about genes is unsatisfactory. On plausible views of development it is arbitrary to single out genes as the units of selection. (ii) The genotype does not carry information about the phenotype in any way that distinguishes the role of the genes in development from that of other factors. (iii) There is no simple and general causal criterion which distinguishes the role of genes in development and evolution. (iv) There is, however, an important sense in which genes but not every other developmental factor represent the phenotype. (v) The idea that genes represent features of the phenotype forces us to recognise that genes are not the only, or almost the only, replicators. Many mechanisms of replication are involved in both development and evolution. (vi) A conception of evolutionary history which recognises both genetic and non-genetic replicators, lineages of replicators and interactors has advantages over both the radical rejection of the replicator/interactor distinction and the conservative restriction of replication to genetic replication.

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This paper examines the age old question of the basis of moral value in a the new context of astrobiology, which offers a fresh perspective. The goal is to offer the broad outline of a general theory of moral value that can accommodate the diversity of living entities we are likely to encounter beyond the confines of Earth. It begins with ratiocentrism, the view that the possession of reason is the primary means by which we differentiate entities having moral value in and of themselves from those having moral value merely by virtue of the uses to which they can be put. I extend this basic position by arguing that reason, sociality and culture tend to arise in evolution as a coevolutionary "package deal." Because of this, it's really the sociality-reason-culture triad (SRCT) which should be the criterion for intrinsic moral value, not reason alone. Interestingly, if the SRCT linkage is sufficiently strong, it follows that this sort of moral valuation would be shared by any non-human entities capable of reflection on the nature of such things, granting it a curious kind of objectivity. Then I suggest that the unfolding of complexity produced by SRCT species may be the best means to realize the manifest destiny (or manifest complexity) of all life, which may provide an ultimate, metaphysical foundation for ethical value. Finally, I outline how this new theory can be applied to different types of entities that we may encounter beyond Earth.

Teaching ethics across the curriculum is a strategy adopted by many universities. One of the fundamental aims of teaching ethics across the curriculum is to get students to see ethics as truly relevant to the subjects they are studying. Ideally, students will come to see that ethics is a thread woven deeply in the fabric of all knowledge and practice. The standard approach, in which students are required to take a separate ethics course, is not especially well suited to this task, but incorporating ethics into science courses presents significant challenges and is likely to meet with resistance, if only because professors in the sciences are often untrained in the teaching of ethics. In an effort to raise the standard of science education as well as comply with a university‐wide curricular mandate, we as a team developed the concept of an “ethics lab.” We discuss the design of the exercises done during laboratory sections, the training of the graduate students who run the exercises, and the iterations of the exercises over time. We report unanticipated rapid positive outcomes of an attempt to integrate ethics education into a sophomore/junior level science course, Introduction to Genetics.

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