Abstract
Part of Allen et al.’s criticism of Hamilton’s rule makes sense only if we are interested in social adaptation rather than merely social selection. Under the assumption that we are interested in casually modeling social adaptation, I illustrate how graphical causal models of social adaptation can be useful for predicting evolution by adaptation. I then argue for two consequences of this approach given some of the recent philosophical literature. I argue Birch’s claim that the proper way to understand Hamilton’s rule is as providing an organizational framework for causal models is incorrect. I provide an account of a causally adequate decomposition of evolutionary change due to social adaptation and show that my account is superior to Okasha’s.
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Notes
To obtain the rule in its familiar form of \(\varDelta A(Y)> 0 \Longleftrightarrow rb > c\), let \(r = \rho\), \(b = \beta _2\), and \(c = - \beta _1\). I prefer to use the notation that shows these are explicitly statistical parameters rather than the metaphorical and, to my mind, potentially confusing “cost” and “benefit” notation.
I thank an anonymous referee for making me clarify this point.
I thank an anonymous referee for asking me to clarify this point.
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Acknowledgements
I express my gratitude to Jonathan Birch, Valerie Racine, and an anonymous referee. The paper significantly improved due to their comments on previous drafts.
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Anderson, W. Graphical causal models of social adaptation and Hamilton’s rule. Biol Philos 34, 48 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9703-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9703-1