共查询到20条相似文献,搜索用时 31 毫秒
1.
Abhijeet Bardapurkar 《Evolution》2008,1(3):299-305
This paper critically reviews and characterizes the student's causal-explanatory understanding; this is done as a step toward
explicating the problematic of evolution education as it concerns the cognitive difficulties in understanding Darwin's theory of natural selection. The review concludes that the student's understanding is fundamentally different from Darwin's, for
the student understands evolutionary change as necessary individual transformation caused by the transformative action of
various physical and behavioral factors. This is in complete contrast to Darwin's (and even the Darwinian's, for that matter)
understanding of evolutionary change as a change caused by accumulative selection. Hence, to understand natural selection,
the student has to learn to “see” how the accumulative selection causes evolutionary change.
相似文献
Abhijeet BardapurkarEmail: |
2.
Roger Sansom 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(4):441-459
One current version of the internalism/externalism debate in evolutionary theory focuses on the relative importance of developmental
constraints in evolutionary explanation. The received view of developmental constraints sees them as an internalist concept
that tend to be shared across related species as opposed to selective pressures that are not. Thus, to the extent that constraints
can explain anything, they can better explain similarity across species, while natural selection is better able to explain
their differences. I challenge both of these aspects of the received view and propose a hierarchical view of constraints.
相似文献
Roger SansomEmail: |
3.
Debates over adaptationism can be clarified and partially resolved by careful consideration of the ‘grain’ at which evolutionary
processes are described. The framework of ‘adaptive landscapes’ can be used to illustrate and facilitate this investigation.
We argue that natural selection may have special status at an intermediate grain of analysis of evolutionary processes. The
cases of sickle-cell disease and genomic imprinting are used as case studies.
相似文献
Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
4.
Angela Potochnik 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(2):183-197
The fate of optimality modeling is typically linked to that of adaptationism: the two are thought to stand or fall together
(Gould and Lewontin, Proc Relig Soc Lond 205:581–598, 1979; Orzack and Sober, Am Nat 143(3):361–380, 1994). I argue here that
this is mistaken. The debate over adaptationism has tended to focus on one particular use of optimality models, which I refer
to here as their strong use. The strong use of an optimality model involves the claim that selection is the only important
influence on the evolutionary outcome in question and is thus linked to adaptationism. However, biologists seldom intend this
strong use of optimality models. One common alternative that I term the weak use simply involves the claim that an optimality
model accurately represents the role of selection in bringing about the outcome. This and other weaker uses of optimality
models insulate the optimality approach from criticisms of adaptationism, and they account for the prominence of optimality
modeling (broadly construed) in population biology. The centrality of these uses of optimality models ensures a continuing
role for the optimality approach, regardless of the fate of adaptationism.
相似文献
Angela PotochnikEmail: |
5.
We present two computational models (i) long-range horizontal connections and the nonlinear effect in V1 and (ii) the filling-in
process at the blind spot. Both models are obtained deductively from standard regularization theory to show that physiological
evidence of V1 and V2 neural properties is essential for efficient image processing. We stress that the engineering approach
should be imported to understand visual systems computationally, even though this approach usually ignores physiological evidence
and the target is neither neurons nor the brain.
相似文献
Shunji SatohEmail: |
6.
Chris Haufe 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(1):115-128
The importance of mate choice and sexual selection has been emphasized by the majority of evolutionary psychologists. This
paper assesses three cases of work on mate choice and sexual selection in evolutionary psychology: David Buss on cross-cultural
human mate preferences, Randy Thornhill and Steve Gangestad on the link between mate preferences and fluctuating asymmetry,
and Geoffrey Miller on the role of Fisher’s runaway process in human evolution. A mixture of conceptual and empirical problems
in each case highlights the general weakness of work in evolutionary psychology on these issues.
相似文献
Chris HaufeEmail: |
7.
Sub-Antarctic Marion Island has had a permanent research station for 50 years and the islands Wandering Albatrosses have been intensively studied for 20 years. The reactions of breeding birds to approaches by a human on foot were recorded. Three response variables were calculated: intensity of vocal reaction (IVR), intensity of non-vocal reaction (INR) and overall response index (ORI). At 5 m from the nest, twice as many birds stood and/or vocalised as at 15 m. Nearest neighbour distance, age and gender did not explain individual variability of responses. Study colony birds had higher IVR scores than non-study colony birds; birds at colonies closest to the station had the highest ORI scores. A better breeding record was associated with lower IVR and ORI scores, but a causative relationship remains to be demonstrated. A minimum viewing distance of 25 m is recommended for breeding Wandering Albatrosses.
相似文献
Marienne S. de VilliersEmail: Fax: +27-21-6503434 |
John CooperEmail: |
Peter G. RyanEmail: |
8.
Stuart Glennan 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(3):325-339
Recent papers by a number of philosophers have been concerned with the question of whether natural selection is a causal process,
and if it is, whether the causes of selection are properties of individuals or properties of populations. I shall argue that
much confusion in this debate arises because of a failure to distinguish between causal productivity and causal relevance.
Causal productivity is a relation that holds between events connected via continuous causal processes, while causal relevance
is a relationship that can hold between a variety of different kinds of facts and the events that counterfactually depend
upon them. I shall argue that the productive character of natural selection derives from the aggregation of individual processes
in which organisms live, reproduce and die. At the same time, a causal explanation of the distribution of traits will necessarily
appeal both to causally relevant properties of individuals and to causally relevant properties that exist only at the level
of the population.
相似文献
Stuart GlennanEmail: |
9.
T. Ryan Gregory 《Evolution》2009,2(1):5-27
It is clear from his published works that Charles Darwin considered domestication to be very useful in exploring and explaining
mechanisms of evolutionary change. Not only did domestication occupy the introductory chapter of On the Origin of Species, but he revisited the topic in a two-volume treatise less than a decade later. In addition to drawing much of his information
about heredity from studies of domesticated animals and plants, Darwin saw important parallels between the process of artificial
selection by humans and natural selection by the environment. There was resistance to this analogy even among Darwin’s contemporary
supporters when it was proposed, and there also has been disagreement among historians and philosophers regarding the role
that the analogy with artificial selection actually played in the discovery of natural selection. Regardless of these issues,
the analogy between artificial and natural selection remains important in both research and education in evolution. In particular,
the present article reviews ten lessons about evolution that can be drawn from the modern understanding of domestication and
artificial selection. In the process, a basic overview is provided of current approaches and knowledge in this rapidly advancing
field.
相似文献
T. Ryan GregoryEmail: |
10.
Roger Sansom 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(4):475-491
I show that gene regulation networks are qualitatively consistent and therefore sufficiently similar to linearly seperable
connectionist networks to warrant that the connectionist framework be applied to gene regulation. On this view, natural selection
designs gene regulation networks to overcome the difficulty of development. I offer some general lessons about their evolvability
that can be learned by examining the generic features of connectionist networks.
相似文献
Roger SansomEmail: |
11.
Claes Andersson 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(2):229-242
Human knowledge is a phenomenon whose roots extend from the cultural, through the neural and the biological and finally all
the way down into the Precambrian “primordial soup.” The present paper reports an attempt at understanding this Greater System
of Knowledge (GSK) as a hierarchical nested set of selection processes acting concurrently on several different scales of
time and space. To this end, a general selection theory extending mainly from the work of Hull and Campbell is introduced.
The perhaps most drastic change from previous similar theories is that replication is revealed as a composite function consisting
of what is referred to as memory and synthesis. This move is argued to drastically improve the fit between theory and human-related knowledge systems. The introduced theory
is then used to interpret the subsystems of the GSK and their interrelations. This is done to the end of demonstrating some
of the new perspectives offered by this view.
相似文献
Claes AnderssonEmail: |
12.
Cooperative child care among humans, where individuals other than the biological mother (allomothers) provide care, may increase
a mother’s fertility and the survivorship of her children. Although the potential benefits to the mother are clear, the motivations
for allomothers to provide care are less clear. Here, we evaluate the kin selection allomothering hypothesis using observations
on Hadza hunter-gatherers collected in ten camps over 17 months. Our results indicate that related allomothers spend the largest
percentage of time holding children. The higher the degree of relatedness among kin, the more time they spend holding, supporting
the hypothesis of nepotism as the strongest motivation for providing allomaternal care. Unrelated helpers of all ages also
provide a substantial amount of investment, which may be motivated by learning to mother, reciprocity, or coercion.
相似文献
Frank W. MarloweEmail: |
13.
A key point in the analysis of dynamical models of biological systems is to handle systems of relatively high dimensions.
In the present paper we propose a method to hierarchically organize a certain type of piecewise affine (PWA) differential
systems. This specific class of systems has been extensively studied for the past few years, as it provides a good framework
to model gene regulatory networks. The method, shown on several examples, allows a qualitative analysis of the asymptotic
behavior of a PWA system, decomposing it into several smaller subsystems. This technique, based on the well-known strongly
connected components decomposition, is not new. However, its adaptation to the non-smooth PWA differential equations turns
out to be quite relevant because of the strong discrete structure underlying these equations. Its biological relevance is
shown on a 7-dimensional PWA system modeling the gene network responsible for the carbon starvation response in Escherichia coli.
相似文献
Laurent Tournier (Corresponding author)Email: |
Jean-Luc GouzéEmail: |
14.
This paper examines the biosemiotic approach to the study of life processes by fashioning a series of questions that any worthwhile
semiotic study of life should ask. These questions can be understood simultaneously as: (1) questions that distinguish a semiotic
biology from a non-semiotic (i.e., reductionist–physicalist) one; (2) questions that any student in biosemiotics should ask
when doing a case study; and (3) still currently unanswered questions of biosemiotics. In addition, some examples of previously
undertaken biosemiotic case studies are examined so as to suggest a broad picture of how such a biosemiotic approach to biology
might be done.
相似文献
Donald FavareauEmail: |
15.
We develop a formal framework for the optimal allocation of limited resources that includes and clarifies the interplay between
individual optimization and the resulting effects at the population level. As an example, in regard to the evolution of sexual
recombination, the paradox of the twofold cost of sex is avoided by distinguishing between the evolution of recombination
and the subsequent emergence and stability of different mating types as a result of individual optimization within a population
that benefits from recombination.
相似文献
John PepperEmail: |
16.
Rapid prototyping of distributed systems can be achieved by integrating commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. With components
as the building blocks, it is important to predict the performance of the system based on the performance of individual components.
In this paper, performance prediction of a system consisting of a small number of components is investigated under different
inter-component communication patterns, and the number of threads provided by components. Based on the experimental results,
it can be inferred that the proposed composition rules provide a reasonably accurate prediction of the performance of a system
made out of these components.
相似文献
Barrett R. BryantEmail: |
17.
The design of a novel context-aware policy model to support machine-based learning and reasoning 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
John Strassner José Neuman de Souza David Raymer Srini Samudrala Steven Davy Keara Barrett 《Cluster computing》2009,12(1):17-43
The purpose of autonomic networking is to manage the business and technical complexity of networked components and systems.
However, the lack of a common lingua franca makes it impossible to use vendor-specific network management data to ascertain the state of the network at any given time.
Furthermore, the tools used to analyze management data are all different, and hence require different data in different formats.
This complicates the construction of context from diverse information sources. This paper describes a new version of the DEN-ng
context-aware policy model, which is part of the FOCALE autonomic network architecture. This model has been built using three
guiding principles: (1) both the context model and the policy model are rooted in information models, so that they can govern
managed entities, (2) each model is expressly constructed to facilitate the generation of ontologies, so that reasoning about
policies constructed from the model may be done, and (3) the model is expressly constructed so that a policy language that
supports machine-based reasoning and learning can be developed from it.
相似文献
Keara BarrettEmail: |
18.
19.
Peter Olofsson 《Biology & philosophy》2008,23(4):545-553
The explanatory filter is a proposed method to detect design in nature with the aim of refuting Darwinian evolution. The explanatory filter borrows
its logical structure from the theory of statistical hypothesis testing but we argue that, when viewed within this context,
the filter runs into serious trouble in any interesting biological application. Although the explanatory filter has been extensively
criticized from many angles, we present the first rigorous criticism based on the theory of mathematical statistics.
相似文献
Peter OlofssonEmail: |
20.
This paper introduces a threshold policy with hysteresis (TPH) for the control of one-predator one-prey models. The models studied are the Lotka–Volterra and Rosenzweig–MacArthur
two species density-dependent predator–prey models and the Arditi–Ginzburg nondimensional ratio-dependent model. The proposed
policy (TPH) changes the dynamics of the system in such a way that a bounded oscillation is achieved confined to a region
that does not allow extinction of either species. The policy can be designed by a suitable choice of so called virtual equilibrium
points in a simple and intuitive manner.
相似文献
Amit Bhaya (Corresponding author)Email: |