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Making the Most of Clade Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

W. Ford Doolittle
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Abstract

Clade selection is unpopular with philosophers who otherwise accept multilevel selection theory. Clades cannot reproduce, and reproduction is widely thought necessary for evolution by natural selection, especially of complex adaptations. Using microbial evolutionary processes as heuristics, I argue contrariwise that (1) clade growth (proliferation of contained species) substitutes for clade reproduction in the evolution of complex adaptation, (2) clade-level properties favoring persistence—species richness, dispersal, divergence, and possibly intraclade cooperation—are not collapsible into species-level traits, (3) such properties can be maintained by selection on clades, and (4) clade selection extends the explanatory power of the theory of evolution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 275 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (grant GLDSU 447989) for support; Austin Booth, Carlos Mariscal, Tyler Brunet, Letitia Meynell, Rich Campbell, and other members of Dalhousie’s Evolution Study Group for advice and comments; and Frédéric Bouchard for inspiration.

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