The evolution of theoretically useful traits
Biology and Philosophy 13 (4) (1998)
| Abstract | The purely theoretical notion of fitness or optimality that is employed for instance in optimization theory has come under attack from those who think that only a more historically based notion of fitness could have a central role in evolutionary explanation. They argue that the key notion is proven usefulness rather than theoretical usefulness. This paper articulates a notion of theoretical usefulness and defends its role in functional evolutionary explanations. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJohn C. Avise (1979). Considerations on the Evolution of Qualitative Multistate Traits. Acta Biotheoretica 28 (3).
Oscar Vilarroya (2001). From Functional Mess to Bounded Functionality. Minds and Machines 11 (2):239-256.
Patrick Forber (2005). On the Explanatory Roles of Natural Selection. Biology and Philosophy 20 (2-3):329-342.
Willem Zuidema & Bart de Boer (2003). How Did We Get From There to Here in the Evolution of Language? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6):694-695.
Alejandro Rosas (2010). Beyond Inclusive Fitness? On A Simple And General Explanation For The Evolution of Altruism. Philosophy and Theory in Biology 2.
Gerhard Schlosser (1998). Self-Re-Production and Functionality. Synthese 116 (3):303-354.
Jerry Fodor (2008). Against Darwinism. Mind and Language 23 (1):1–24.
Daniel Dennett & Ryan McKay (2006). A Continuum of Mindfulness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (4):353-354.
Susan K. Mills & John H. Beatty (1979). The Propensity Interpretation of Fitness. Philosophy of Science 46 (2):263-286.
Sahotra Sarkar (2005). Maynard Smith, Optimization, and Evolution. Biology and Philosophy 20 (5):951-966.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads5 ( #160,284 of 549,067 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
