Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:39:51.938Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Why the Causal View of Fitness Survives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

We critically examine Denis Walsh's latest attack on the causalist view of fitness. Relying on Judea Pearl's Sure-Thing Principle and geneticist John Gillespie's model for fitness, Walsh has argued that the causal interpretation of fitness results in a reductio. We show that his conclusion only follows from misuse of the models, that is, (1) the disregard of the real biological bearing of the population-size parameter in Gillespie's model and (2) the confusion of the distinction between ordinary probability and Pearl's causal probability. Properly understood, the models used by Walsh do not threaten the causalist view of fitness.

Type
Research Article
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

We are grateful to the members of the Indiana University Biology Studies Reading Group, for discussions leading to this article, and to three anonymous referees, who provided helpful suggestions.

References

Coyne, Jerry A., Barton, Nicholas H., and Turelli, Michael. 1997. “Perspective: A Critique of Sewall Wright's Shifting Balance Theory of Evolution.” Evolution 51 (3): 643–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coyne, Jerry A., Barton, Nicholas H., and Turelli, Michael. 2000. “Is Wright's Shifting Balance Process Important in Evolution?Evolution 54 (1): 306–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Steven A., and Slatkin, Montgomery. 1990. “Evolution in a Variable Environment.” American Naturalist 136 (2): 244–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, John H. 1974. “Natural Selection for within-Generation Variance in Offspring Number.” Genetics 76 (3): 601–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gillespie, John H.. 1975. “Natural Selection for within-Generation Variance in Offspring II: Discrete Haploid Models.” Genetics 81 (2): 403–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, John H.. 1977. “Natural Selection for Variances in Offspring Numbers: A New Evolutionary Principle.” American Naturalist 111 (981): 1010–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodnight, Charles J., and Wade, Michael J.. 2000. “The Ongoing Synthesis: A Reply to Coyne, Barton, and Turelli.” Evolution 54 (1): 317–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matthen, Mohan, and Ariew, André. 2002. “Two Ways of Thinking about Fitness and Natural Selection.” Journal of Philosophy 99:5583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Northcott, Robert. 2010. “Walsh on Causes and Evolution.” Philosophy of Science 77:457–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunney, Leonard. 1999. “The Effective Size of a Hierarchically Structured Population.” Evolution 53 (1): 110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearl, Judea. 2000. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Price, George R. 1972. “Extension of Covariance Selection Mathematics.” Annals of Human Genetics 35:485–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simpson, Edward H. 1951. “The Interpretation of Interaction in Contingency Tables.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 13:238–41.Google Scholar
Sober, Elliott. 1993. Philosophy of Biology. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Wade, Michael J., and Goodnight, Charles J.. 1998. “Perspective: The Theories of Fisher and Wright in the Context of Metapopulations: When Nature Does Many Small Experiments.” Evolution 52 (6): 1537–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walsh, Denis M. 2007. “The Pomp of Superfluous Causes: The Interpretation of Evolutionary Theory.” Philosophy of Science 74 (3): 281303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Denis M.. 2010. “Not a Sure Thing: Fitness, Probability, and Causation.” Philosophy of Science 77 (2): 147–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Denis M., Lewens, Tim, and Ariew, André. 2002. “The Trials of Life: Natural Selection and Random Drift.” Philosophy of Science 69 (3): 429–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yule, George U. 1903. “Notes on the Theory of Association of Attributes in Statistics.” Biometrika 2:121–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar