This category needs an editor. We encourage you to help if you are qualified.
Volunteer, or read more about what this involves.
Related

Contents
70 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 70
  1. The Evolution of the Individual.Peter Godfrey-Smith - manuscript
    Sometimes themes can be found in common across very different systems in which change occurs. Imre Lakatos developed a theory of change in science, and one involving entities visible at different levels. There are theories defended at a particular time, and there are also research programs, larger units that bundle together a sequence of related theories and within which many scientists may work. Research programs are competing higher-level units within a scientific field. Scientific change involves change within research programs, and (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  2. Adaptation, multilevel selection and organismality: A clash of perspectives.Ellen Clarke - forthcoming - In Richard Joyce (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy. Routledge.
    The concept of adaptation is pivotal to modern evolutionary thinking, but it has long been the subject of controversy, especially in respect of the relative roles of selection versus constraints in explaining the traits of organisms. This paper tackles a different problem for the concept of adaptation: its interpretation in light of multilevel selection theory. In particular, I arbitrate a dispute that has broken out between the proponents of rival perspectives on multilevel adaptations. Many experts now say that multilevel and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  3. Human major transitions from the perspective of distributed adaptations.Ehud Lamm, Meir Finkel & Oren Kolodny - 2023 - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 378 (1872):11.
    Distributed adaptations are cases in which adaptation is dependent on the population as a whole: the adaptation is conferred by a structural or compositional aspect of the population; the adaptively relevant information cannot be reduced to information possessed by a single individual. Possible examples of human-distributed adaptations are song lines, traditions, trail systems, game drive lanes and systems of water collection and irrigation. Here we discuss the possible role of distributed adaptations in human cultural macro-evolution. Several kinds of human-distributed adaptations (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Evolution within the body: The rise and fall of somatic Darwinism in the late nineteenth century.Bartlomiej Swiatczak - 2023 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 45 (8):1-27.
    Originating in the work of Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm Preyer, and advanced by a Prussian embryologist, Wilhelm Roux, the idea of struggle for existence between body parts helped to establish a framework, in which population cell dynamics rather than a predefined harmony guides adaptive changes in an organism. Intended to provide a causal-mechanical view of functional adjustments in body parts, this framework was also embraced later by early pioneers of immunology to address the question of vaccine effectiveness and pathogen resistance. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Tradeoff breaking as a model of evolutionary transitions in individuality and limits of the fitness-decoupling metaphor.Pierrick Bourrat - 2022 - eLife 11:e73715.
    Evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs) involve the formation of Darwinian collectives from Darwinian particles. The transition from cells to multicellular life is a prime example. During an ETI, collectives become units of selection in their own right. However, the underlying processes are poorly understood. One observation used to identify the completion of an ETI is an increase in collective-level performance accompanied by a decrease in particle-level performance, for example measured by growth rate. This seemingly counterintuitive dynamic has been referred to (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  6. Group transformation: life history tradeoffs, division of labor and evolutionary transitions in individuality.Guilhem Doulcier, Katrin Hammerschmidt & Pierrick Bourrat - 2022 - In Matthew Herron, Peter L. Conlin & William Ratcliff (eds.), The Evolution of Multicellularity. Boca Raton: CRC Press. pp. 227-248.
    Reproductive division of labor has been proposed to play a key role for evolutionary transitions in individuality (ETIs). This chapter provides a guide to a theoretical model that addresses the role of a tradeoff between life-history traits in selecting for a reproductive division of labor during the transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms. In particular, it focuses on the five key assumptions of the model, namely (1) fitness is viability times fecundity; (2) collective traits are linear functions of their cellular (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level.Anton Sukhoverkhov & Nathalie Gontier - 2021 - Biosystems 1 (200):104325.
    The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  8. Struggle within: evolution and ecology of somatic cell populations.Bartlomiej Swiatczak - 2021 - Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 78 (21):6797-6806.
    The extent to which normal (nonmalignant) cells of the body can evolve through mutation and selection during the lifetime of the organism has been a major unresolved issue in evolutionary and developmental studies. On the one hand, stable multicellular individuality seems to depend on genetic homogeneity and suppression of evolutionary conflicts at the cellular level. On the other hand, the example of clonal selection of lymphocytes indicates that certain forms of somatic mutation and selection are concordant with the organism-level fitness. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  9. Альтруизм, Иисус и конец света – как Фонд Темплтона купил профессорскую должность ВГарварда и напал на Эволюцию, Рациональность и Цивилизацию. Обзор "Социальное завоевание Земли" (The Social Conquest of Earth) by E.O. Wilson (2012) и Nowak and Highfield "Супер кооператоры”(SuperCooperators) (2012) (обзор пересмотрен 2019).Michael Richard Starks - 2020 - In ДОБРО ПОЖАЛОВАТЬ В АД НА НАШЕМ МИРЕ : Дети, Изменение климата, Биткойн, Картели, Китай, Демократия, Разнообразие, Диссигеника, Равенство, Хакеры, Права человека, Ислам, Либерализм, Процветание, Сеть, Хаос, Голод, Болезнь, Насилие, Искусственный интелле. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 276-289.
    Знаменитый человек-муравей Э.О. Уилсон всегда был одним из моих героев - не только выдающимся биологом, но и одним из крошечных и исчезающих меньшинств интеллектуалов, которые, по крайней мере, осмеливаются намекнуть на правду о нашей природе, которую другие не понимают, или, поскольку ониd-o хватаются, старательно избегают политической целесообразности. К сожалению, он заканчивает свою долгую карьеру в самых грязную моду в качестве участника невежественных и высокомерных нападение на науку мотивированы по крайней мере частично религиозный пыл его коллег Гарварда. Это показывает, гнусные последствия, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. की समीक्षा "हम Hardwired हैं? क्लार्क और ग्रुंस्टीन ऑक्सफोर्ड (2000) द्वारा--Review of “Are We Hardwired? by Clark & Grunstein (संशोधित 2019).Michael Richard Starks - 2020 - In पृथ्वी पर नर्क में आपका स्वागत है: शिशुओं, जलवायु परिवर्तन, बिटकॉइन, कार्टेल, चीन, लोकतंत्र, विविधता, समानता, हैकर्स, मानव अधिकार, इस्लाम, उदारवाद, समृद्धि, वेब, अराजकता, भुखमरी, बीमारी, हिंसा, कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता, युद्ध. Las Vegas, NV, USA: Reality Press. pp. 100-102.
    यह व्यवहार पर जीन/पर्यावरण बातचीत की एक उत्कृष्ट समीक्षा है और, थोड़ा दिनांकित होने के बावजूद, एक आसान और सार्थक पढ़ा है. वे जुड़वां अध्ययन जो व्यवहार पर आनुवंशिकी के भारी प्रभाव दिखाने के साथ शुरू करते हैं. वे जूडिथ हैरिस के तेजी से अच्छी तरह से ज्ञात अध्ययन जो विस्तार और तथ्यों है कि साझा घर के माहौल व्यवहार पर लगभग कोई प्रभाव नहीं है संक्षेप में ध्यान दें और कहा कि गोद लिया बच्चों को अपने सौतेले भाई और (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Genomic Stress Responses Drive Lymphocyte Evolvability: An Ancient and Ubiquitous Mechanism.Bartlomiej Swiatczak - 2020 - Bioessays 42 (10):2000032.
    Somatic diversification of antigen receptor genes depends on the activity of enzymes whose homologs participate in a mutagenic DNA repair in unicellular species. Indeed, by engaging error-prone polymerases, gap filling molecules and altered mismatch repair pathways, lymphocytes utilize conserved components of genomic stress response systems, which can already be found in bacteria and archaea. These ancient systems of mutagenesis and repair act to increase phenotypic diversity of microbial cell populations and operate to enhance their ability to produce fit variants during (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  12. Considering Intra-individual Genetic Heterogeneity to Understand Biodiversity.Eva Boon - 2019 - In From Assessing to Conserving Biodiversity. Cham: Springer. pp. 219-232.
    In this chapter, I am concerned with the concept of Intra-individual Genetic Hetereogeneity (IGH) and its potential influence on biodiversity estimates. Definitions of biological individuality are often indirectly dependent on genetic sampling -and vice versa. Genetic sampling typically focuses on a particular locus or set of loci, found in the the mitochondrial, chloroplast or nuclear genome. If ecological function or evolutionary individuality can be defined on the level of multiple divergent genomes, as I shall argue is the case in IGH, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Genetic Relatedness and Its Causal Role in the Evolution of Insect Societies.Tuomas K. Pernu - 2019 - Journal of Biosciences 44:107.
    The role of genetic relatedness in social evolution has recently come under critical attention. These arguments are here critically analyzed, both theoretically and empirically. It is argued that when the conceptual structure of the theory of natural selection is carefully taken into account, genetic relatedness can be seen to play an indispensable role in the evolution of both facultative and advanced eusociality. Although reviewing the empirical evidence concerning the evolution of eusociality reveals that relatedness does not play a role in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. The Trajectory of Evolution and its Implications for Humanity.John E. Stewart - 2019 - Journal of Big History (3):141-155.
    Does the Big History of life on Earth disclose a trajectory that has been driven by selection? If so, will the trajectory continue to apply into the future? This paper argues that such a trajectory exists, and examines some of its key implications. The most important consequence is that humanity can use the trajectory to guide how it evolves and adapts into the future. This is because the trajectory identifies a sequence of adaptations that will be favoured by selection. If (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts.Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda & Francisco Vergara-Silva - 2018 - Evolutionary Biology 45 (2):127-139.
    Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  16. A trilemma for teleological individualism.John Basl - 2017 - Synthese 194 (4):1027-1029.
    This paper addresses the foundations of Teleological Individualism, the view that organisms, even non-sentient organisms, are goal-oriented systems while biological collectives, such as ecosystems or conspecific groups, are mere assemblages of organisms. Typical defenses of Teleological Individualism ground the teleological organization of organisms in the workings of natural selection. This paper shows that grounding teleological organization in natural selection is antithetical to Teleological Individualism because such views assume a view about the units of selection on which it is only individual (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  17. Making the most of clade selection.W. Ford Doolittle - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (2):275-295.
    Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise, that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence – species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation – are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  18. Landscapes of Collectivity in the Life Sciences.Snait B. Gissis, Ehud Lamm & Ayelet Shavit (eds.) - 2017 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
    The aim of the book is to explore common concerns regarding methodological individualism in different fields of the life sciences broadly construed. It will address conceptual problems regarding individuals and their relation and dependence on the collectivities they are part of and consider innovative new viewpoints, grounded in specific scientific projects that question the present descriptions and understanding and raise challenges. A wide variety of recent, influential contributions in the life sciences utilize notions of collectivity, sociality, rich interactions and emergent (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  19. Evolutionary Transitions to Multicellular Life. [REVIEW]Ellen Clarke - 2016 - Quarterly Review of Biology 91 (3):370-371.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Cultural group selection and holobiont evolution – a comparison of structures of evolution.Ehud Lamm - 2016 - In Snait Gissis, Ehud Lamm & Ayelet Shavit (eds.), Landscapes of Collectivity in the Life Sciences. MIT Press.
    The notion of structure of evolution is proposed to capture what it means to say that two situations exhibit the same or similar constellations of factors affecting evolution. The key features of holobiont evolution and the hologenome theory are used to define a holobiont structure of evolution. Finally, Cultural Group Selection, a set of hypotheses regarding the evolution of human cognition, is shown to match the holobiont structure closely though not perfectly.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Evolutionary genetics and cultural traits in a 'body of theory' perspective.Emanuele Serrelli - 2016 - In Fabrizio Panebianco & Emanuele Serrelli (eds.), Understanding cultural traits. A multidisciplinary perspective on cultural diversity. Springer. pp. 179-199.
    The chapter explains why evolutionary genetics – a mathematical body of theory developed since the 1910s – eventually got to deal with culture: the frequency dynamics of genes like “the lactase gene” in populations cannot be correctly modeled without including social transmission. While the body of theory requires specific justifications, for example meticulous legitimations of describing culture in terms of traits, the body of theory is an immensely valuable scientific instrument, not only for its modeling power but also for the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Population Pluralism and Natural Selection.Jacob Stegenga - 2016 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-29.
    I defend a radical interpretation of biological populations—what I call population pluralism—which holds that there are many ways that a particular grouping of individuals can be related such that the grouping satisfies the conditions necessary for those individuals to evolve together. More constraining accounts of biological populations face empirical counter-examples and conceptual difficulties. One of the most intuitive and frequently employed conditions, causal connectivity—itself beset with numerous difficulties—is best construed by considering the relevant causal relations as ‘thick’ causal concepts. I (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  23. Eukaryogenesis: how special, really?Austin Booth & W. Ford Doolittle - 2015 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:1-8.
    Eukaryogenesis is widely viewed as an improbable evolutionary transition uniquely affecting the evolution of life on this planet. However, scientific and popular rhetoric extolling this event as a singularity lacks rigorous evidential and statistical support. Here, we question several of the usual claims about the specialness of eukaryogenesis, focusing on both eukaryogenesis as a process and its outcome, the eukaryotic cell. We argue in favor of four ideas. First, the criteria by which we judge eukaryogenesis to have required a genuinely (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  24. Levels of Selection Are Artefacts of Different Fitness Temporal Measures.Pierrick Bourrat - 2015 - Ratio 28 (1):40-50.
    In this paper I argue against the claim, recently put forward by some philosophers of biology and evolutionary biologists, that there can be two or more ontologically distinct levels of selection. I show by comparing the fitness of individuals with that of collectives of individuals in the same environment and over the same period of time – as required to decide if one or more levels of selection is acting in a population – that the selection of collectives is a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  25. Cooperation and Its Evolution. [REVIEW]Fritz J. McDonald - 2015 - Philosophical Psychology 28 (8):1253-1255.
    Review of Cooperation and its Evolution, edited by Kim Sterelny, Richard Joyce, Brett Calcott, and Ben Fraser.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. On the Free-Rider Identification Problem.Ronald J. Planer - 2015 - Biological Theory 10 (2):134-144.
    Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis have argued that individual-selection accounts of human cooperation flounder in the face of the free-rider identification problem. Kim Sterelny has responded to this line of argument for group selection, arguing that the free-rider identification problem in fact poses no theoretical difficulty for individual-selection accounts. In this article, I set out to clarify Bowles and Gintis’ argument. As I see matters, the real crux of their argument is this: solving the free-rider identification problem, even in modestly (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  27. Pathways to pluralism about biological individuality.Beckett Sterner - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (5):609-628.
    What are the prospects for a monistic view of biological individuality given the multiple epistemic roles the concept must satisfy? In this paper, I examine the epistemic adequacy of two recent accounts based on the capacity to undergo natural selection. One is from Ellen Clarke, and the other is by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Clarke’s position reflects a strong monism, in that she aims to characterize individuality in purely functional terms and refrains from privileging any specific material properties as important in their (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  28. Populations and Individuals in Heterokaryotic Fungi: A Multilevel Perspective.Austin Booth - 2014 - Philosophy of Science 81 (4):612-632,.
    Among mycologists, questions persist about what entities should be treated as the fundamental units of fungal populations. This article articulates a coherent view about populations of heterokaryotic fungi and the individuals that comprise them. Using Godfrey-Smith’s minimal concept of a Darwinian population, I argue that entities at two levels of the biological hierarchy satisfy the minimal concept in heterokaryotic fungi: mycelia and nuclei. I provide a preliminary answer to the question of how to understand the relation between these two populations. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  29. The genome as a developmental organ.Ehud Lamm - 2014 - Journal of Physiology 592 (11):2237-2244.
    This paper applies the conceptual toolkit of Evolutionary Developmental Biology (evo‐devo) to the evolution of the genome and the role of the genome in organism development. This challenges both the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, the dominant view in evolutionary theory for much of the 20th century, and the typically unreflective analysis of heredity by evo‐devo. First, the history of the marginalization of applying system‐thinking to the genome is described. Next, the suggested framework is presented. Finally, its application to the evolution of (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  30. Population Pluralism and Natural Selection.Jacob Stegenga - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (1):axu003.
    I defend a radical interpretation of biological populations—what I call population pluralism—which holds that there are many ways that a particular grouping of individuals can be related such that the grouping satisfies the conditions necessary for those individuals to evolve together. More constraining accounts of biological populations face empirical counter-examples and conceptual difficulties. One of the most intuitive and frequently employed conditions, causal connectivity—itself beset with numerous difficulties—is best construed by considering the relevant causal relations as ‘thick’ causal concepts. I (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  31. Ecology, Evolution, Ethics: In Search of a Meta-paradigm – An Introduction.Donato Bergandi - 2013 - In The Structural Links Between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle. Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer. pp. 1-28.
    Evolutionary, ecological and ethical studies are, at the same time, specific scientific disciplines and, from an historical point of view, structurally linked domains of research. In a context of environmental crisis, the need is increasingly emerging for a connecting epistemological framework able to express a common or convergent tendency of thought and practice aimed at building, among other things, an environmental policy management respectful of the planet’s biodiversity and its evolutionary potential.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  32. Natural Selection Among Replicators, Interactors and Transactors.Donato Bergandi - 2013 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 35 (2):213-238.
    In evolutionary biology and ecology, ontological and epistemological perspectives based on the replicator and the interactor have become the background that makes it possible to transcend traditional biological levels of organization and to achieve a unified view of evolution in which replication and interaction are fundamental operating processes. Using the transactional perspective proposed originally by John Dewey and Arthur Fisher Bentley, a new ontological and methodological category is proposed here: the transactor. The transactional perspective, based on the concept of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. Colonies are individuals: revisiting the superorganism revival.Matt Haber - 2013 - In Philippe Huneman & Frédéric Bouchard (eds.), From Groups to Individuals. Evolution and Emerging Individuality. MIT Press. pp. 195.
  34. Gould Talking Past Dawkins on the Unit of Selection Issue.Michael Anthony Istvan - 2013 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (3):327-335.
    My general aim is to clarify the foundational difference between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins concerning what biological entities are the units of selection in the process of evolution by natural selection. First, I recapitulate Gould’s central objection to Dawkins’s view that genes are the exclusive units of selection. According to Gould, it is absurd for Dawkins to think that genes are the exclusive units of selection when, after all, genes are not the exclusive interactors: those agents directly engaged (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Immunity and the Emergence of Individuality.Thomas Pradeu - 2013 - In Philippe Huneman & Frédéric Bouchard (eds.), From Groups to Individuals. Evolution and Emerging Individuality. MIT Press. pp. 77.
    Since, it has become clear that individuality is not to be considered as a given, but rather as something which needs to be explained. How has individuality emerged through evolution, and how has it subsequently been maintained? In particular, why is it that multicellular organisms appeared and persisted, despite the obvious interest of each cell of favoring its own replication? Several biologists see the immune system as one of the key components for explaining the maintenance of multicellular organisms’ individuality. Indeed, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  36. Which Comes First in Major Transitions: The Behavioral Chicken, or the Evolutionary Egg?Michael Trestman - 2013 - Biological Theory 7 (1):48 - 55.
    This paper takes a close look at the role of behavior in the “major transitions” in evolution—events during which inheritance and development, and therefore the process of adaptation by natural selection, are reorganized at a new level of compositional hierarchy—and at the requirements for sufficiently explaining these important events in the history of life. I argue that behavior played a crucial role in driving at least some of the major transitions. Because behavioral interactions can become stably organized in novel ways (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. Puzzles for ZFEL, McShea and Brandon’s zero force evolutionary law.Martin Barrett, Hayley Clatterbuck, Michael Goldsby, Casey Helgeson, Brian McLoone, Trevor Pearce, Elliott Sober, Reuben Stern & Naftali Weinberger - 2012 - Biology and Philosophy 27 (5):723-735.
    In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  38. Applied Evolutionary Epistemology: A new methodology to enhance interdisciplinary research between the human and natural sciences.Nathalie Gontier - 2012 - Kairos 1 (4):7-49.
  39. How to identify the units, levels and mechanisms of language evolution.Nathalie Gontier - 2010 - In A. D. M. Smith (ed.), The evolution of language: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference (EVOLANG 8). pp. 176-183.
  40. Realism, Conventionalism, and Causal Decomposition in Units of Selection: Reflections on Samir Okasha’s Evolution and the Levels of Selection.Elliott Sober - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (1):221-231.
    I discuss two subjects in Samir Okasha’s excellent book, Evolution and the Levels of Selection. In consonance with Okasha’s critique of the conventionalist view of the units of selection problem, I argue that conventionalists have not attended to what realists mean by group, individual, and genic selection. In connection with Okasha’s discussion of the Price equation and contextual analysis, I discuss whether the existence of these two quantitative frameworks is a challenge to realism.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  41. Understanding colonial traits using symbiosis research and ecosystem ecology.Frédéric Bouchard - 2009 - Biological Theory 4 (3):240-246.
    E. O. Wilson (1974: 54) describes the problem that social organisms pose: “On what bases do we distinguish the extremely modified members of an invertebrate colony from the organs of a metazoan animal?” This framing of the issue has inspired many to look more closely at how groups of organisms form and behave as emergent individuals. The possible existence of “superorganisms” test our best intuitions about what can count and act as genuine biological individuals and how we should study them. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  42. Organization of Insect Societies: From Genome to Sociocomplexity.Jürgen Gadau & Jennifer Fewell (eds.) - 2009 - Harvard.
    In this landmark volume, an international group of scientists has synthesized their collective expertise and insight into a newly unified vision of insect ...
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  43. Social Insects and the Individuality Thesis: Cohesion and the Colony as a Selectable Individual.Andrew Hamilton, Nathan Smith & Matthew Haber - 2009 - In Juergen Gadau & Jennifer Fewell (eds.), Organization of Insect Societies: From Genome to Sociocomplexity. Harvard.
  44. Chicken, eggs, and speciation.Mohan Matthen - 2009 - Noûs 43 (1):94-115.
    Standard biological and philosophical treatments assume that dramatic genotypic or phenotypic change constitutes instantaneous speciation, and that barring such saltation, speciation is gradual evolutionary change in individual properties. Both propositions appear to be incongruent with standard theoretical perspectives on species themselves, since these perspectives are (a) non-pheneticist, and (b) tend to disregard intermediate cases. After reviewing certain key elements of such perspectives, it is proposed that species-membership is mediated by membership in a population. Species-membership depends, therefore, not on intrinsic characteristics (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  45. Selection and causation.Mohan Matthen & André Ariew - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (2):201-224.
    We have argued elsewhere that: (A) Natural selection is not a cause of evolution. (B) A resolution-of-forces (or vector addition) model does not provide us with a proper understanding of how natural selection combines with other evolutionary influences. These propositions have come in for criticism recently, and here we clarify and defend them. We do so within the broad framework of our own “hierarchical realization model” of how evolutionary influences combine.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (7 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   60 citations  
  46. Darwinism About Darwinism: Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection Peter Godfrey-Smith Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [REVIEW]Joeri Witteveen - 2009 - Biological Theory 4 (2):207-213.
    Essay review of 'Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection'.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. The other cooperation problem: Generating benefit.Brett Calcott - 2008 - Biology and Philosophy 23 (2):179-203.
    Understanding how cooperation evolves is central to explaining some core features of our biological world. Many important evolutionary events, such as the arrival of multicellularity or the origins of eusociality, are cooperative ventures between formerly solitary individuals. Explanations of the evolution of cooperation have primarily involved showing how cooperation can be maintained in the face of free-riding individuals whose success gradually undermines cooperation. In this paper I argue that there is a second, distinct, and less well explored, problem of cooperation (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  48. Die Debatte um die Einheiten der natürlichen Selektion: Pluralistische Lösungsansatze.Marie I. Kaiser - 2008 - Saarbrücken, GER: VDM Verlag.
    What is the level of organization on which natural selection operates? Are genes, organisms or groups the entities that are selected in adaptive evolutionary processes? This book discusses recent pluralistic solutions to the problem of the units of selection. After introducing central concepts and ideas from evolutionary biology, this book constructs a novel map of the philosophical debate and locates gene selectionism, multilevel selection theory, and description pluralism on the map. The book closes with a critical discussion of different versions (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  49. Science, Politics, and Evolution.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 2008 - Cambridge University Press.
    This book brings together important essays by one of the leading philosophers of science at work today. Elisabeth A. Lloyd examines several of the central topics in philosophy of biology, including the structure of evolutionary theory, units of selection, and evolutionary psychology, as well as the Science Wars, feminism and science, and sexuality and objectivity. Lloyd challenges the current evolutionary accounts of the female orgasm and analyses them for bias. She also offers an innovative analysis of the concept of objectivity. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  50. The generational cycle of state spaces and adequate genetical representation.Elisabeth A. Lloyd, Richard C. Lewontin & and Marcus W. Feldman - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (2):140-156.
    Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve. We show that the claimed mathematical equivalence of the models does not hold. *Received January 2007; revised (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
1 — 50 / 70