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Organizational ecology is commonly seen as a Darwinian research program that seeks to explain the diversity of organizational structures, properties and behaviors as the product of selection in past social environments in a similar manner as evolutionary biology seeks to explain the forms, properties and behaviors of organisms as consequences of selection in past natural environments. We argue that this explanatory strategy does not succeed because organizational ecology theory lacks an evolutionary mechanism that could be identified as the principal cause of organizational diversity. The "evolution" of organizational populations by means of selection, which organizational ecologists put forward as the mechanism responsible for the extant diversity of organizational forms, is not evolution in any proper sense, because organizational populations do not have what it takes to participate in evolutionary processes. This implies that organizational ecology is not a Darwinian research program and that it cannot explain organizational diversity.

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Misconceptions about genetics and genomics, such as notions of genetic determinism and the existence of 'genes for' particular traits, are widespread both in educational contexts and in the public perception of genetics and genomics. Owing to such misunderstandings, the prospect of personalized medicine often raises concerns with the general public about possible adverse societal consequences of the technologies that are implemented. Among the questions that are to be addressed in this context are: to what extent is personalized medical treatment possible? Does it require access to sensitive personal data? Who should be given such access? What other ethical issues might be raised by personalized medicine? How could these be answered? We argue that scientists have a professional responsibility to effectively communicate current knowledge and views about potential applications to the public in order to better address and resolve such issues.

A major issue in philosophical debates on the species problem concerns the opposition between two seemingly incompatible views of the metaphysics of species: the view that species are individuals and the view that species are natural kinds. In two recent papers in this journal, Olivier Rieppel suggested that this opposition is much less deep than it seems at first sight. Rieppel used a recently developed philosophical account of natural kindhood, namely Richard BoydÕs ''homeostatic property cluster'' theory, to argue that every species taxon can be conceived of as an individual that constitutes the single member of its own specific natural kind. In this paper I criticize RieppelÕs approach and argue that it does not deliver what it is supposed to, namely an account of species as kinds about which generalized statements can be made.