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Mechanistic Constraints on Evolutionary Outcomes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Tudor M. Baetu
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Abstract

Understanding the role mechanistic constraints play in shaping evolution can relieve the tension between the generally accepted intuition that there are no strict laws in biology and empirical findings showing that evolutionary processes are biased toward preferred outcomes. Mechanistic constraints explain why some evolutionary outcomes are more probable than others and allow for predictions in specific lineages. At the same time, mechanistic constraints are neither necessary nor universal in the way laws are traditionally characterized: they remain contingent on the past evolution of the biological mechanisms underpinning them and only constrain the future evolution of the organisms possessing them.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 276 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Lindley Darden, Erika Milam, Eric Saidel, Lane DesAutels, Elizabeth Schechter, the DC History and Philosophy of Biology group, the Maryland Mechanisms group, members of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2011 and International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology 2011 conferences, as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful discussion and comments on earlier drafts. This work was supported by Fonds de la recherche sur la société et la culture, Québec, Canada (grant 127231).

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