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Random Foraging and Perceived Randomness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2023

Marshall Abrams
Marshall Abrams*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA
*
Email: mabrams@uab.edu
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Abstract

Research in evolutionary ecology on random foraging seems to ignore the possibility that some random foraging is an adaptation not to environmental randomness, but to what Wimsatt called “perceived randomness.” This occurs when environmental features are unpredictable, whether physically random or not. Mere perceived randomness may occur, for example, due to effects of climate change or certain kinds of static landscape variation. I argue that an important mathematical model concerning random foraging doesn’t depend on environmental randomness, despite contrary remarks by researchers. I use computer simulations to illustrate the idea that random foraging is an adaptation to mere perceived randomness.

Type
Contributed Paper
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 90 , Issue 5 , December 2023 , pp. 1244 - 1254
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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