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  • 1
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Evolution of Strategies to Stay in the Game (2000)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 15 (2000), S. 177-196 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: evolutionary failure ; evolutionary success ; fitness ; game of life ; life-history evolution ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Life-history evolution is a complexprocess. Life-history theory covers the fundamentallevel of the process, the evolution of life-historytraits. Life-history traits interact; thosecoevolving as a response to the same selectionpressure form life-history tactics. Top level of thehierarchy, life-history strategy, is formed bygenetically interconnected tactics. Our aim is toexpand the traditional view to life-history evolutionby considering what boundary conditions a successfullife-history strategy has to fulfil. We claim thatthe most fundamental condition successful strategieshave to meet is to minimize the risk of evolutionaryfailure. Here the risk of failure refers to failurein transferring practitioners of the strategy to thenext time point, either through survival, or byreproduction. We make an attempt to classify types ofrisks as they lead to evolutionary failure, anddiscuss how risk minimization ideas may be approachedempirically. We conclude that understanding howtraits evolve may not cover all aspects of howstrategies evolve. We emphasize that bookkeeping ofthe actual causes of failure might help in developinglife-history theory that uses causes of selection topredict responses to selection.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006688902786
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  • 2
    Electronic Resource
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    Two Explanations of Evolutionary Progress (2000)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 15 (2000), S. 475-491 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: explanation ; evolutionary progress ; natural selection ; styles of reasoning
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Natural selection explains how living forms are fitted to theirconditions of life. Darwin argued that selection also explains what hecalled “the gradual advancement of the organisation,” i.e.evolutionary progress. Present-day selectionists disagree. In theirview, it is happenstance that sustains conditions favorable to progress,and therefore happenstance, not selection, that explains progress. Iargue that the disagreement here turns not on whether there exists aselection-based condition bias – a belief now attributed to Darwin – but on whether there needs to be such a bias for selection to count as explaining progress. In Darwin's own view, selection explained progressso far as more complex organisms have the selective advantage whenselection operates unimpeded. I show that these two explanations ofevolutionary progress, selection and happenstance, answer for theirobjectivity to different standards, and for their truth or falsehood todifferent features of the world.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006609532691
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  • 3
    Electronic Resource
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    Complexity versus Uncertainty: The Question of Staying Alive (2000)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 15 (2000), S. 493-508 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: complexity ; entropy balance ; environment independence ; evolution ; information fundamental identity ; uncertainty
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Some real objects show a very particular tendency: that of becomingindependent with regard to the uncertainty of their surroundings. This isachieved by the exchange of three quantities: matter, energy andinformation. A conceptual framework, based on both Non-equilibriumThermodynamic and the Mathematical Theory of Communication is proposedin order to review the concept of change in living individuals. Three mainsituations are discussed in this context: passive independence inconnection with resistant living forms (such as seeds, spores, hibernation,...), active independence in connection with the life span of aliving individual (whether an ant or an ant farm), and the newindependence in connection with the general debate of biological evolution.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006611022472
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  • 4
    Electronic Resource
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    Population Level Causation and a Unified Theory of Natural Selection (1999)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 14 (1999), S. 521-536 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: fitness ; natural selection ; population level causation ; unification
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Sober (1984) presents an account of selection motivated by the view that one property can causally explain the occurrence of another only if the first plays a unique role in the causal production of the second. Sober holds that a causal property will play such a unique role if it is a population level cause of its effect, and on this basis argues that there is selection for a trait T only if T is a population level cause of survival and reproductive success. Sterelny and Kitcher (1988) claim against Sober that some traits directly subject to selection will not satisfy the probabilistic condition on population level causation. In this paper I show that Sober has the resources to resist the Sterelny-Kitcher complaint, but I argue that not all traits that satisfy the probabilistic condition play the required unique role in the production of their effects.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006516232674
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  • 5
    Electronic Resource
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    Reflections on Ernst Mayr's This is Biology (1999)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 14 (1999), S. 103-116 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: biology ; creationism ; cultural evolution ; Darwinian revolution ; essentialism ; ethics ; holism ; human nature ; natural selection ; organicism ; physicalism ; science ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract In this essay I argue that Ernst Mayr's idea that the emergence of evolutionary biology in Western thought was delayed by the pernicious influence of the “false ideologies” of Platonism, Christianity, and “physicalism” is ahistorical and anti-evolutionary, that similar ideas, especially his antipathy to “physicalism,” prejudice his account of the transformation of natural history and medical science into “biology,” that his organicist resolution of the perennial conflict between mechanism and vitalism is an unstable compound of semi-holism and semi-mechanism, that his conception of biology as the true bridge between the sciences and the humanities, ethics, and social theory is open to question (especially as to the adequacy of the theory of natural selection to account for every aspect of human nature), and that his depiction of science as the sovereign key to understanding “everything known to exist or happen in this universe” cannot be justified at the bar of reason.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006544406231
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  • 6
    Electronic Resource
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    Modus Darwin (1999)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 14 (1999), S. 253-278 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: ancestry ; Bayesianism ; creationism ; Darwin ; evolution ; likelihood ; natural selection ; phylogeny ; probability ; Reichenbach
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Modus Darwin is a principle of inference that licenses the conclusion that two species have a common ancestor, based on the observation that they are similar. The present paper investigates the principle's probabilistic foundations.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006626115852
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  • 7
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    Retelling Experiments: H.B.D. Kettlewell's Studies of Industrial Melanism in Peppered Moths (1999)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 14 (1999), S. 39-54 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: experiment ; evolution ; industrial melanism ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract H. B. D. Kettlewell's field experiments on industrial melanism in the peppered moth, Biston betularia, have become the best known demonstration of natural selection in action. I argue that textbook accounts routinely portray this research as an example of controlled experimentation, even though this is historically misleading. I examine how idealized accounts of Kettlewell's research have been used by professional biologists and biology teachers. I also respond to some criticisms of David Rudge to my earlier discussions of this case study, and I question Rudge's claims about the importance of purely observational studies for the eventual acceptance and popularization of Kettlewell's explanation for the evolution of industrial melanism.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006576518561
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  • 8
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    From Biological Inhibitions to Cultural Prohibitions, or How Not to Refute Edward Westermarck (1998)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 13 (1998), S. 413-426 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: insect taboos ; Westermarck ; natural selection ; sociobiology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract My aim in this paper is to take a closer look at an influential argument that purports to prove that the existence of cultural prohibitions could never be explained by biological inhibitions. The argument is two-pronged. The first prong reduces to the claim: inhibitions cannot cause prohibitions simply because inhibitions undermine the raison dêtre of prohibitions. The second strategy consists in arguing that inhibitions cannot cause prohibitions because the two differ importantly in their contents. I try to show that both claims fail.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006545130874
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  • 9
    Electronic Resource
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    The Invisible Hand of Natural Selection, and Vice Versa (1998)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 13 (1998), S. 427-442 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: invisible hand ; natural selection ; economics ; conscious design ; distributive-collective ; Herschel criterion ; evolutionary epistemology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Building on work by Popper, Schweber, Nozick, Sober, and others in a still-growing literature, I explore here the conceptual kinship (not the hackneyed ideological association) between Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' and Darwinian natural selection. I review the historical ties, and examine Ullman-Margalit's 'constraints' on invisible-hand accounts, which I later re-apply to natural selection, bringing home the close relationship. These theories share a 'parent' principle, itself neither biological no politico-economic, that collective order and well-being can emerge parsimoniously from the dispersed (inter)action of individuals. The invisible hand operates on 'memes' the way natural selection operates on genes. Like Darwin's concept, it brings together traditional opposites, 'nature' and 'selection,' forming a saltation-mitigating transition between biological instinct and full-blown conscious design. Herschel's criterion of confirmation, which Darwin long strove to satisfy, is itself an invisible hand-like meme – a 'Midas effect' revealing and rewarding the fittest theories, Darwin's and Smith's emphatically among them.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006538721601
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  • 10
    Electronic Resource
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    The Beanbag Genetics Controversy: Towards a synthesis of opposing views of natural selection (1997)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 12 (1997), S. 149-184 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: natural selection ; beanbag genetics ; genic selectionism ; gene-interactionism ; epistasis ; multilocus selection ; adaptive landscape ; peripatric speciation
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract The beanbag genetics controversy can be traced from the dispute between Fisher and Wright, through Mayr's influential promotion of the issue, to the contemporary units of selection debate. It centers on the claim that genic models of natural selection break down in the face of epistatic interactions among genes during phenotypic development. This claim is explored from both a conceptual and a quantitative point of view, and is shown to be defective on both counts. Firstly, an analysis of the controversy's theoretical origins demonstrates that this claim derives from a misinterpretation of the conceptual foundations of Fisher's genetical theory of natural selection, and confounds his fundamentally different concepts of the average excess and average effect of a gene. Secondly, an extension of the genic approach is proposed which models the dynamics of selection among epistatically interacting complexes of many genes. Paradoxically, this preliminary, but fundamentally genic model provides quantitative support for some controversial qualitative claims regarding the evolutionary consequences of strong gene interactions made by opponents of genic selectionism, including Mayr's theory of peripartric speciation. These findings foster hope that the proposed approach may eventually nudge the beanbag controversy out of its conceptual trenches into a more empirically oriented dialogue.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1006590002756
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  • 11
    Electronic Resource
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    Changing conceptions of species (1996)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 11 (1996), S. 405-420 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: species ; evolution ; natural selection ; gradualism ; punctuated equilibria ; variation ; Lamarck ; Darwin
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Species are thought by many to be important units of evolution. In this paper, I argue against that view. My argument is based on an examination of the role of species in the synthetic theory of evolution. I argue that if one adopts a gradualist view of evolution, one cannot make sense of the claim that species are “units” in the minimal sense needed to claim that they are units of evolution, namely, that they exist as discrete entities over time. My second argument is directed against an appeal to Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibria to support the claim that species are units of evolution. If one adopts their view, it may be possible to identify discrete temporal entities that can plausibly be termed ‘species’, but there is no reason to claim that those entities are “units of evolution”. Thus, on two plausible interpretations of the role of natural selection in the process of evolution, species are of no special importance. I then consider some of the reasons why species have been thought to be important evolutionary units by many contemporary evolutionary biologists. Finally, I discuss briefly the implications of this conclusion for evolutionary biology.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00128789
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  • 12
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    Adaptationism: Hypothesis or Heuristic? (1996)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 12 (1996), S. 39-50 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: adaptationism ; natural selection ; heuristics
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Elliott Sober (1987, 1993) and Orzack and Sober (forthcoming) argue that adaptationism is a very general hypothesis that can be tested by testing various particular hypotheses that invoke natural selection to explain the presence of traits in populations of organisms. In this paper, I challenge Sober‘s claim that adaptationism is an hypothesis and I argue that it is best viewed as a heuristic (or research strategy). Biologists would still have good reasons for employing this research strategy even if it turns out that natural selection is not the most important cause of evolution.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1017936706537
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  • 13
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    Function without purpose (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 443-469 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Function ; natural selection ; anatomy ; homology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Philosophers of evolutionary biology favor the so-called “etiological concept” of function according to which the function of a trait is its evolutionary purpose, defined as the effect for which that trait was favored by natural selection. We term this the selected effect (SE) analysis of function. An alternative account of function was introduced by Robert Cummins in a non-evolutionary and non-purposive context. Cummins's account has received attention but little support from philosophers of biology. This paper will show that a similar non-purposive concept of function, which we term causal role (CR) function, is crucial to certain research programs in evolutionary biology, and that philosophical criticisms of Cummins's concept are ineffective in this scientific context. Specifically, we demonstrate that CR functions are a vital and ineliminable part of research in comparative and functional anatomy, and that biological categories used by anatomists are not defined by the application of SE functional analysis. Causal role functions are non-historically defined, but may themselves be used in an historical analysis. Furthermore, we show that a philosophical insistence on the primary of SE functions places practicing biologists in an untenable position, as such functions can rarely be demonstrated (in contrast to CR functions). Biologists who study the form and function of organismal design recognize that it is virtually impossible to identify the past action of selection on any particular structure retrospectively, a requirement for recognizing SE functions.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00850375
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  • 14
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    Teleology by another name: A reply to Ghiselin (1994)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 9 (1994), S. 493-495 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Adaptation ; Darwin ; final cause ; Ghiselin ; natural selection ; plant sexuality ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00850378
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  • 15
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    Darwin was a teleologist (1993)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 8 (1993), S. 409-421 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Adaptation ; Darwin ; final cause ; natural selection ; plant sexuality ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract It is often claimed that one of Darwin's chief accomplishments was to provide biology with a non-teleological explanation of adaptation. A number of Darwin's closest associates, however, and Darwin himself, did not see it that way. In order to assess whether Darwin's version of evolutionary theory does or does not employ teleological explanation, two of his botanical studies are examined. The result of this examination is that Darwin sees selection explanations of adaptations as teleological explanations. The confusion in the nineteenth century about Darwin's attitude to teleology is argued to be a result of Darwin's teleological explanations not conforming to either of the dominant philosophical justifications of teleology at that time. Darwin's explanatory practices conform well, however, to recent defenses of the teleological character of selection explanations.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00857687
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  • 16
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    An ecological approach to biosystem thermodynamics (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 35-60 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Action principles ; ecosystem structure ; evolution ; information ; natural selection ; non-equilibrium thermodynamics ; teleology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract The general attributes of ecosystems are examined and a naturally occurring “reference ecosystem” is established, comparable with the “isolated” system of classical thermodynamics. Such an autonomous system with a stable, periodic input of energy is shown to assume certain structural characteristics that have an identifiable thermodynamic basis. Individual species tend to assume a state of “least dissipation”; this is most clearly evident in the dominant species (the species with the best integration of energy acquisition and conservation). It is concluded that ecosystem structure results from the antagonistic interaction of two nearly equal forces. These forces have their origin in the Principle of Most Action (“least dissipation” or “least entropy production”) and the universal Principle of Least Action. “Most action” is contingent on the equipartitioning of the energy available, through uniform interaction of similar individuals. The trend to “Least action” is contingent on increased dissipation attained through increasing diversity and increasing complexity. These principles exhibit a basic asymmetry. Given the operation of these opposing principles over evolutionary time, it is argued that ecosystems originated in the vicinity of thermodynamic equilibrium through the resonant amplification of reversible fluctuations. On account of the basic asymmetry the system was able to evolve away from thermodynamic equilibrium provided that it remained within the vicinity of “ergodynamic equilibrium” (equilibrium maintained by internal work, where the opposing forces are equal and opposite). At the highest level of generalization there appear to be three principles operating: i) maximum association of free-energy and materials; ii) energy conservation (deceleration of the energy flow) through symmetric interaction and increased homogeneity; and iii) the principle of least action which induces acceleration of the energy flow through asymmetrical interaction. The opposition and asymmetry of the two forces give rise to natural selection and evolution.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00130163
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  • 17
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    Discussion: Leo Buss's The Evolution of Individuality (1992)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 7 (1992), S. 453-460 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Adaptationism ; cell lineages ; development ; individuals ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract In his book The Evolution of Individuality, Leo Buss attacks a central dogma of the neo-Darwinian (or synthetic) theory of evolution, the idea that the individual is the sole unit of selection, by arguing that individuals themselves emerged as the result of selective forces that regulated the replication of cell lineages for the benefit of the whole organism. Buss also argues that metazoan developmental patterns and life cycles are the products of selection operating on different units of selection, and that there have been transitions between different units of selection during the history of life. Despite the revolutionary character of this book, The Evolution of Individuality in many ways reflects the adaptationist thinking often associated with the synthetic theory. Buss' framework could be improved by giving further consideration to chance factors in the evolution of development, and examining the details of the evolution of ontogeny in more depth.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00130062
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  • 18
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    Fitness and evolutionary explanation (1991)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 1-22 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Explanation ; fitness ; natural selection ; propensity ; tautology
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Recent philosophical discussions have failed to clarify the roles of the concept fitness in evolutionary theory. Neither the propensity interpretation of fitness nor the construal of fitness as a primitive theoretical term succeed in explicating the empirical content and explanatory power of the theory of natural selection. By appealing to the structure of simple mathematical models of natural selection, we separate out different contrasts which have tended to confuse discussions of fitness: the distinction between what fitness is defined as versus what fitness is a function of, the contrast between adaptedness as an overall property of organisms and specific adaptive capacities, the distinction between actual and potential reproductive success, the role of chance versus systematic causal relations, fitness as applied to organisms as opposed to fitness applied to genotype classes, heritable adaptive capacities of genotypes as opposed to relations between genotypes and the environment. We show how failure to distinguish and properly interrelate these different aspects of “fitness” adds confusion to a number of already complex issues concerning evolutionary theory. On the basis of our discussion of these different aspects of “fitness”, we propose a terminology which makes the necessary distinctions. A central result of our analysis is that the concept of fitness as the overall adaptedness of organisms does not enter into the causal structure of evolutionary explanation, at least to the extent that this structure is represented in the mathematical models of natural selection.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02426816
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  • 19
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    What is this stuff called fitness? (1991)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 6 (1991), S. 81-92 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Evolution ; fitness ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract This paper considers a variety of attempts to define fitness in such a way as to defend the theory of evolution by natural selection from the criticism that it is a circular argument. Each of the definitions is shown to be inconsistent with the others. The paper argues that the environment in which an animal evolves can be defined only with respect to the properties of the phenotype of the animal and that it is therefore not illuminating to try to explain the phenotypic properties of the animal in terms of adaptation to an environment that is defined by those very properties. Furthermore, since there is no way that the environment can be defined independently of the presence of the animal there is no way that the quality of an animal can be assessed; and there can be no objective criteria by whichany form of selection can be carried out, therefore there can be no criteria by whichnatural selection can be carried out. It is proposed that fitness is nothing more than the production of offspring, that this is a phenotypic property like all the others, and if it is heritable then the offspring of the parents that produce the most offspring will themselves produce the most offspring, and that in principle it is impossible to account for this in terms of the other phenotypic properties of the fittest animals except by circular argument. Differential rates of reproduction are the causes of evolution and the phenotypic causes are strictly inexplicable.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02426827
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  • 20
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    Entropy and information in evolving biological systems (1989)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 4 (1989), S. 407-432 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: evolution ; entropy ; information ; hierarchy ; ecology ; phylogeny ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Integrating concepts of maintenance and of origins is essential to explaining biological diversity. The unified theory of evolution attempts to find a common theme linking production rules inherent in biological systems, explaining the origin of biological order as a manifestation of the flow of energy and the flow of information on various spatial and temporal scales, with the recognition that natural selection is an evolutionarily relevant process. Biological systems persist in space and time by transfor ming energy from one state to another in a manner that generates structures which allows the system to continue to persist. Two classes of energetic transformations allow this; heat-generating transformations, resulting in a net loss of energy from the system, and conservative transformations, changing unusable energy into states that can be stored and used subsequently. All conservative transformations in biological systems are coupled with heat-generating transformations; hence, inherent biological production, or genealogical proesses, is positively entropic. There is a self-organizing phenomenology common to genealogical phenomena, which imparts an arrow of time to biological systems. Natural selection, which by itself is time-reversible, contributes to the organization of the self-organized genealogical trajectories. The interplay of genealogical (diversity-promoting) and selective (diversity-limiting) processes produces biological order to which the primary contribution is genealogical history. Dynamic changes occuring on times scales shorter than speciation rates are microevolutionary; those occuring on time scales longer than speciation rates are macroevolutionary. Macroevolutionary processes are neither redicible to, nor autonomous from, microevolutionary processes.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00162588
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  • 21
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    Evolution in thermodynamic perspective: An ecological approach (1989)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 4 (1989), S. 373-405 
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    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Noneequilibrium thermodynamics ; information ; informed patters of energy flow ; ecological hierarchy ; geneological hierarchy ; succession ; development ; Darwinian tradition ; reductionism ; teleology ; natural selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract Recognition that biological systems are stabilized far from equilibrium by self-organizing, informed, autocatalytic cycles and structures that dissipate unusable energy and matter has led to recent attempts to reformulate evolutionary theory. We hold that such insights are consistent with the broad development of the Darwinian Tradition and with the concept of natural selection. Biological systems are selected that re not only more efficient than competitors but also enhance the integrity of the web of energetic relations in which they are embedded. But the expansion of the informational phase space, upon which selection acts, is also guaranteed by the properties of open informational-energetic systems. This provides a directionality and irreversibility to evolutionary processes that are not reflected in current theory. For this thermodynamically-based program to progress, we believe that biological information should not be treated in isolation from energy flows, and that the ecological perspective must be given descriptive and explanatory primacy. Levels of the ecological hierarchy are relational parts of ecological systems in which there are stable, informed patterns of energy flow and entropic dissipation. Isomorphies between developmental patterns and ecological succession are revealing because they suggest that much of the encoded metabolic information in biological systems is internalized ecological information. The geneological hierarchy, to the extent that its information content reflects internalized ecological information, can therefore be redescribed as an ecological hierarchy. This thermodynamic approach to evolution frees evolutionary theory from dependence on a crypto-Newtonian language more appropriate to closed equilibrial systems than to biological systems. It grounds biology non-reductively in physical law, and drives a conceptual wedge between functions of artifacts and functions of natural systems. This countenances legitimate use of teleology grounded in natural, teleomatic laws.
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    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00162587
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  • 22
    Electronic Resource
    Electronic Resource
    Reproduction and the central project of evolutionary theory (1987)
    Springer
    Biology and philosophy 2 (1987), S. 383-396 
    Details
    ISSN: 1572-8404
    Keywords: Reproduction ; individualism ; fitness ; natural selection ; units of selection
    Source: Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
    Topics: Biology , Philosophy
    Notes: Abstract In much of the discourse of evolutionary theory, reproduction is treated as an autonomous function of the individual organism — even in discussions of sexually reproducing organisms. In this paper, I examine some of the functions and consequences of such manifestly peculiar language. In particular, I suggest that it provides crucial support for the central project of evolutionary theory — namely that of locating causal efficacy in intrinsic properties of the individual organism. Furthermore, I argue that the language of individual reproduction is maintained by certain methodological conventions that both obscure many of the problems it generates and serve to actively impede attempts to redress those difficulties that can be identified. Finally, I suggest that inclusion of the complexities introduced by sexual reproduction — in both language and methodology — may radically undermine the individualist focus of evolutionary theory.
    Type of Medium: Electronic Resource
    URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00127697
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