Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-07T23:15:20.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on Path Dependence and Irreversibility: Lessons from Evolutionary Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Eric Desjardins
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines the claim “path dependence entails irreversibility” from the point of view of evolutionary biology. I argue that evolutionary irreversibility possesses many faces, sometimes conflicting with path dependence. I propose an account of path dependence that does not rely on irreversibility and explain why it more naturally coexists with the notion of (contingent) irreversibility developed by the Belgian paleontologist Louis Dollo. However, I argue that we should not conceive of this relationship as necessary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 724 - 738
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Robert Batterman, Christopher Smeenk, Gillian Baker, John Beatty, Christopher Stephens, Paul Bartha, and Valérie Racine for their comments on earlier versions of this work.

References

Arthur, Brian. 1994. Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, Martin, and Sober, Elliott. 1995. “When and Why Does Entropy Increase?” In Time's Arrow Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction of Time, ed. Savitt, S. F., 230–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bassanini, Andrea, and Dosi, Giovanni. 1999. “When and How Chance and Human Will Can Twist the Arms of Clio.” LEM Working Paper series 05, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa.Google Scholar
Beatty, John, and Desjardins, Eric C.. 2009. “Natural Selection and History.” Biology and Philosophy 24:231–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bull, J. J., and Charnov, E. L.. 1985. “On Irreversible Evolution.” Evolution 39 (5): 1149–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Castaldi, Carolina, and Dosi, Giovanni. 2006. “The Grip of History and the Scope for Novelty: Some Results and Open Questions on Path Dependence in Economic Processes.” In Understanding Change: Models, Methodologies, and Metaphors, ed. Wimmer, Andreas and Kössler, Reinhart, 99–128. Houndmills: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, Paul A. 1985. “Clio and the Economics of Qwerty.” American Economic Review 75 (2): 332–37.Google Scholar
David, Paul A.. 2001. “Path Dependence, Its Critics, and the Quest for Historical Economics.” In Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas, ed. Garouste, Pierre and Ioannides, Stavros, 15–40. Northampton: Elgar.Google Scholar
David, Paul A.. 2005. “Path Dependence in Economic Processes: Implications for Policy Analysis in Dynamical System Context.” In The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics, ed. Dopfer, Kurt, 151–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Denbigh, K. G. 1989. “The Many Faces of Irreversibility.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (4): 501–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desjardins, Eric. 2011. “Historicity and Experimental Evolution.” Biology and Philosophy 26 (3): 339–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, A. W. F. 1994. “The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.” Biological Reviews 69:443–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ewens, W. J. 1989. “An Interpretation and Proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.” Theoretical Population Biology 36 (2): 167–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fisher, Ronald A. 1956. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Gavrilets, Sergey. 2004. Fitness Landscapes and the Origin of Species. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Stephen J. 1970. “Dollo on Dollo's Law: Irreversibility and the Status of Evolutionary Laws.” Journal of the History of Biology 3 (2): 189–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gould, Stephen J.. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 1993. Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macbeth, Norman. 1980. “Reflections on Irreversibility.” Systematic Zoology 29 (4): 402–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard-Smith, John, and Szathmáry, Eörs. 1995. The Major Transitions in Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Okasha, S. 2008. “Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection—a Philosophical Analysis.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 59 (3): 319–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Scott E. 2006. “Path Dependence.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1:87–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review 94 (2): 251–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P.. 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence. 1995. Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 1988. Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Eörs, Szathmáry. 2006. “Path Dependence and Historical Contingency in Biology.” In Understanding Change: Models, Methodologies, and Metaphors, ed. Wimmer, Andreas and Kössler, Reinhart, 140–57. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Whiting, Michael F., Bradler, Sven, and Maxwell, Taylor. 2003. “Loss and Recovery of Wings in Stick Insects.” Nature 421 (6920): 264–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed